It's been somewhat quiet on the Apple-Samsung legal battlefront ever since a California jury handed down its verdict in a trial between the two companies late last month. Today we've got another case to talk about, though, as Reuters notes that an International Trade Commission judge has handed down his preliminary ruling for a complaint filed by Samsung against Apple. The complaint alleged that Apple had violated four Samsung patents with the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, but Judge James Gildea has ruled that Apple did not infringe upon Samsung's patents. Now the full ITC commission will need to decide whether to uphold or reverse Gildea's ruling, which is expected to happen in January.

Samsung originally filed this complaint against Apple in July 2011. Some of the patents included relate to things like dialing a number on a smartphone and viewing digital documents. Now that the ITC judge has handed down his preliminary ruling on the matter, the case will go to the full ITC commission, which will need to decide whether to uphold Judge Gildea's ruling or reverse it. The commission is expected to make a decision in January. We've yet to get a comment from either Apple or Samsung on this ruling, but we'll pass along any statements that the companies may make. 

Via Reuters, FOSS Patents, U.S. International Trade Commission (PDF)