SYDNEY—Samsung Electronics Co. won a significant victory Wednesday in its global tablet war with Apple Inc., as a panel of judges lifted a temporary ban on sales of its devices in Australia.

Apple, which argues that Samsung copied the design from the iPad, had already succeeded in persuading a court in Germany to bar the sale of some of its tablets there. The U.S. company turned up the heat further this week by asking the same German court to ban sales of a modified Samsung device throughout the entire European Union.

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