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Apple's bid to block June 21 US launch of Samsung Galaxy S III denied

Apple will not be able to bar sales of Samsung's Galaxy S III smartphone before its June 21 launch in the U.S., a judge has ruled.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif., ruled this week that Apple's push to block sales of the Galaxy S III in just over a week wouldn't fit on her calendar, according to Reuters. Apple had hoped to win a quick ruling that would push back the launch of Samsung's new flagship Android-based phone.

Koh's ruling came only a few days after Apple suffered another setback in court, when U.S. Circuit Court Judge Richard Posner in Chicago, Ill., deemed that Apple hat not shown enough to prove injury. The case was scheduled to begin this week, but Posner's ruling canceled the trial.

In contrast, Apple's setback against Samsung in attempting to block the launch of the Galaxy S III is not an indication that Apple would lose an eventual court ruling. Instead, the scheduling of the court just wouldn't allow a ruling to be made in the next week.

Apple indicated last week in front of Koh that they were interested in pursuing a restraining order against the Galaxy S III in order to block sales of the device before it reaches U.S. shores. Apple attorney Josh Krevitt told the court that the harm would be "irreparable" once sales of the Android smartphone began.

Samsung reportedly saw more than 9 million preorders of the Galaxy S III with its carrier partners before launch. It already debuted in late May in Europe and is now available in a total of 28 countries, and Samsung expects to have the Galaxy S III available in 145 countries on 296 wireless operators by the end of July.

Samsung first unveiled the quad-core Galaxy S III a month ago. It features a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED screen, a 1.4-gigahertz processor, one gigabyte of RAM, and available capacities of 16, 32 and 64 gigabytes.

Apple has argued in court that the Galaxy S III should be included as part of another ongoing preliminary injunction case against the Galaxy Nexus, since Apple sees Samsung's latest smartphone as a successor to the handset created through a partnership of Google and Samsung. In response, Samsung said in a formal opposition that Apple's motion "should not be done on two days' notice, without due process, and with no factual record whatsoever."

Samsung and Apple are engaged in a number of patent infringement suits against one another. They began more than a year ago, when Apple sued Samsung and accused the company of copying the look and feel of the iPhone and iPad, and the cases now span over 10 countries around the world.