Technology giant Apple has finally scored success in blocking sales of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the US, with Judge Lucy Koh issuing a ban stating that the handset has infringed four Apple patents.

According to patent number 8,086,604, the smartphone has infringed the ability to search multiple sources through a single interface as in Apple's Siri. The patent 5,946,647 referred to actionable linking while patent 8,046,721 infringed slide-to-unlock feature. The last patent 8,074,172 pointed to the touch screen word suggestion feature.

The Cupertino giant is increasingly getting insecure with the slew of Samsung devices hitting the tech market during the past couple of years. There have been several instances where Samsung has fought the accusations levelled against the company.

The latest device, Galaxy Nexus, has the hardware support from Samsung with its software specifically supported by Google, and is thereby commonly referred to as "Google's smartphone".

In order for the ban to take off, Apple is required to post a bond worth $96 million. Meanwhile, Samsung is allowed to revoke the court decision and prove its adversary wrong.

The court has even indicated that should sales of Galaxy Nexus continue, then the device could cause irreparable harm to Apple in terms of lost market share. Apple's effort to block  Galaxy Nexus sales may be the company's strategy of paving the way for its upcoming iPhone 5 to be free of any competition, and a similar ploy may be adopted to block other successful Samsung devices in the market.

The new strategy could thus help the iPhone 5 gain a head start for higher sales margin, thereby benefitting the company itself. Though such infringement cases against Samsung may help the iPhone maker to an extent, it may also turn out to be trap for which Apple may find hard to escape.

Moreover, by suing Samsung, Apple has apparently steered away the attention from the problems the company is facing as of late.

Meanwhile, Samsung's success in the smartphone arena has reached greater heights since the introduction of its Galaxy S3, which is widely perceived as an "iPhone killer". While a different version of the Galaxy S3 is soon to release, Apple has maintained the same design and offers just one set of hardware support.