A U.S. judge has refused to lift a ban on US sales of the tablet computers as legal brawling continues between the South Korean electronics titan and Apple. A U.S. jury declared on August 24 that the Samsung should pay Apple $1.049 billion in damages for illegally copying iPhone and iPad features for its flagship Galaxy S smartphones. However, the jury said Samsung did not abuse design patents that were the grounds for a temporary ban -- placed by US District Court Judge Lucy Koh in June -- on Galaxy Tab 10.1 device imports.

Koh wrote in a ruling Wednesday that she would grant Samsung's request to lift the ban if she could, but no longer had authority to make the call since the firm appealed to a higher court to have the ban overturned.

Samsung said on Thursday it was "disappointed" by Koh's decision.

Seperately, the S. Korean company said on Thursday it planned to add Apple's iPhone 5 to its existing patent lawsuits against the U.S. rival.



"Samsung anticipates that it will file, in the near future, a motion to amend its infringement contentions to add the iPhone 5 as an accused product," it said in a U.S. court filing.

"Based on information currently available, Samsung expects that the iPhone 5 will infringe the asserted Samsung patents-in-suit in the same way as the other accused iPhone models."

The latest legal step comes as Apple booked orders for over two million iPhone 5 models in the first 24 hours and the model hits store shelves on Friday.