Apple has scored its second legal victory of the week with a court ruling on Friday that effectively bans sales of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone in the US.

Fresh from her ban on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 earlier in the week, US District Judge Lucy Koh has issued a pre-trial injunction against Samsung over the Android smartphone to stop sales until the ongoing patent dispute with Apple is settled. Koh appears to have decided Apple has a case and allowing sales would cause the world's most valuable company to lose future income.

"Apple has made a clear showing that, in the absence of a preliminary injunction, it is likely to lose substantial market share in the smartphone market and to lose substantial downstream sales of future smartphone purchases and tag-along products," Judge Koh said in Friday's ruling, Reuters reports.

The move is a heavy blow to the Korean manufacturer, since it effectively kills sales of its top touch mobile hardware in one of the most important markets in the world and, while no trial date has been set, it is effectively locked out of the lucrative Christmas sales period. With RIM out of the running too it's looking like a good holiday season for Apple.

Google too aren't going to be happy with the ruling either. It had high hopes for the handset and handed out 6,000 of them at this week's I/O developer's conference as a platform for people to design applications around. ®