A U.S. judge on Friday granted Apple Inc's request for a pre-trial injunction against the sale of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's Galaxy Nexus phone, handing the iPhone maker its second legal
victory against Samsung in a week.

Apple and Samsung, the world's largest consumer electronics corporations, are waging legal war in several countries, accusing each other of patent violations as they vie for supremacy in a fast-growing market for mobile devices. Friday's decision, by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, comes days after she also slapped a pre-trial ban on sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, a tablet computer that runs on Google Inc's Android and goes toe-to-toe with the iPad.

The back-to-back triumphs - significant because pre-trial injunctions are rarely granted - meant Apple had a better week in court than last week, when Chicago federal court judge Richard Posner ruled the iPhone maker could not pursue an injunction against Google's Motorola Mobility, effectively ending that case.