In a new turn of events, Apple has suffered a significant setback in its legal onslaught against the arch rival Samsung. According to latest reports, the iPhone maker's plea in a German court for imposing a preliminary ban on the Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy 10.1N has been rejected today.

Apple filed the lawsuit in the Munich Regional Court, arguing that the Galaxy maker's aforementioned two devices were infringing on one of its crucial patent involving a certain touchscreen technology used in smartphones and tablets.

"Samsung has shown that it is more likely than not that the patent will be revoked because of a technology that was already on the market before the intellectual property had been filed for protection," Presiding Judge Andreas Mueller said while delivering his judgement on the case, reports BusinessWeek.

Both the companies, however, refrained from issuing any official comments regarding the end results of today's case.

Meanwhile, the legal battles between the two tech giants are hardly showing any signs of a slowdown. Both the companies are suing each other in a handful of countries all around the globe including the UK, US, South Korea, Germany, Australia alleging each other of violating key intellectual property rights.