Apple did not violate patents owned by Samsung in making the iPod touch, iPhone and iPad, a judge at the International Trade Commission said in a preliminary ruling (No. 337-TA-794) on Friday. International Trade Commissiion (ITC) Judge James Gildea said on Friday that Apple did not violate the four patents in the case. Samsung had accused Apple of infringement in a complaint filed in August of 2011. It asked for the infringing products to be banned from sale in the United States.

The full commission is due to decide whether to uphold or overturn its internal judge's decision in January.

The patents in the complaint are related to a method for encoding/decoding a transport format combination indicator (TFCI) in a CDMA mobile communication system; a method and apparatus for transmitting and receiving data with high reliability in a mobile communication system supporting packet data transmission; a method for dialing a phone number in a smart phone having both PDA and mobile phone functions during operation of a PDA function; and a user interface of systems for manipulating and viewing digital documents.

Apple has also filed a complaint against Samsung at the ITC, accusing Samsung of copying its iPhones and iPads. The ITC judge's preliminary decision is due in mid-October.

The ITC judge's decision comes just weeks after a jury in a California federal court ordered Samsung to pay $1.05 billion in damages after finding that Samsung had copied features of the iPhone and iPad and could face an outright sales ban on key products.

Samsung has said it will contest that verdict.