Judge Lucy Koh has denied Apple's request for a permanent injunction against Samsung smartphones, Reuters reported. 
 
 Apple had been awarded $1.05 billion in damages in an August verdict. The trial's jury found that Samsung willfully copied features of Apple's iPhone and iPad. 
 
 The Cupertino, Calif. company also sought a permanent sales ban on the smartphones in question — a formidable list of 26 devices. 
 
 Judge Koh decided against the ban, claiming that the features Samsung had infringed upon were only "a small fraction" of the phones' features. 
 
 "Though Apple does have some interest in retaining certain features as exclusive to Apple, it does not follow that entire products must be forever banned from the market because they incorporate, among their myriad features, a few narrow protected functions," Koh wrote in her Monday verdict. 
 
 But there was also good news for Apple on Monday. Judge Koh decided against Samsung's request for a new trial due to an alleged jury bias, meaning that the $1.05 billion verdict still stands. 
 
 Image courtesy of Samsung ||||| "Causal nexus" is key. Meanwhile, Samsung's jury misconduct claim is a nonstarter 
 
 FORTUNE -- Apple (AAPL) lost an important ruling Monday night when a U.S. federal judge denied its request for a permanent ban on a collection of Samsung products that Apple charged -- and a jury ruled -- had willfully infringed Apple's patents. 
 
 Samsung, for its part, lost what most court watchers believed was a long-shot bid for a retrial based on what it claimed was evidence of jury misconduct on the part of the foreman. 
 
 The two rulings were the first in a series expected from Judge Lucy Koh on post-trial issues stemming from last August's closely-watched Apple v. Samsung case. 
 
 Koh has yet to rule on whether the $1.05 billion the jury ordered Samsung to pay will be increased by more than $500 million, as Apple requested, or reduced considerably, as Samsung hopes. 
 
 But for companies as rich as these two, the money is the least of it. 
 
 The judge's decision not to ban the infringing products takes much of the sting out of Samsung's sweeping loss last summer. Her ruling turned on what has come to be known as the "causal nexus" question. It's not enough for Apple to prove that Samsung infringed its patents, according to Koh. To show that it suffered "irreparable harm" Apple must also prove that those specific infringements caused consumers to choose, say, a Samsung Galaxy S II over an iPhone 4. 
 
 Apple is expected to appeal. It argues that the causal nexus hurdle sets the bar too high for any patent holder to win an import ban in the U.S. 
 
 On the jury misconduct issue, Judge Koh didn't even bother to order evidentiary hearings. It's not clear whether Samsung intends to pursue that claim any further. 
 
 Meanwhile, Samsung announced Tuesday that it will drop all its suits against Apple in Europe based on so-called standard essential patents. Samsung had tried to ban the sale of Apple products in several European countries -- a move that triggered a European Union antitrust investigation into whether Samsung was violating its pledge to license its patents on "fair and reasonable" terms.
– A victory for Samsung in its long-running feud with Apple: A judge has refused to ban 26 of the South Korean firm's smartphones, as Apple wanted. A jury this summer found that Samsung had knowingly infringed on Apple's patents, but that's not sufficient grounds for a ban, Judge Lucy Koh says. Instead, Apple would have to prove "irreparable harm" by demonstrating that customers were choosing specific Samsung devices over the Cupertino company's own, Forbes reports. Koh also noted that just "a small fraction" of Apple's features suffered infringement, and "it does not follow that entire products must be forever banned from the market," Reuters reports. Apple is likely to appeal the move, Forbes notes. In better news for the US firm, Koh nixed Samsung's call for a new trial over jury bias—leaving the $1.05 billion ruling in place, Mashable notes. Meanwhile, Samsung is ditching its bids for injunctions against Apple in Europe, where the European Commission in January planned an antitrust probe over Samsung patents. "We strongly believe it is better when companies compete fairly in the marketplace, rather than in court," the company said in a statement to the Verge.