Court pauses import ban on Apple’s latest smartwatches

APPS

A court has paused a recently implemented import ban that prohibits Apple Inc. from selling its Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 wearables in the US.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit made the decision today following an emergency request from the iPhone maker. Separately, Apple filed an appeal against the import ban. The import ban will stay paused until the court decides whether to extend the reprieve for the duration of the company’s appeal effort, which is expected to take a year.

Apple’s latest smartwatches can measure the wearer’s oxygen levels using a sensing technique known as pulse oximetry. Two months ago, the U.S. International Trade Commission determined that the feature breaches two patents issued to medical device maker Masimo Corp. and its spinoff company Cercacor Laboratories Inc. That finding is what led to the smartwatch import ban, which went into effect on Tuesday after the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative decided to keep it in place.

Masimo sued Apple in 2020 over the Watch product series’ pulse oximetry feature. According to the lawsuit, the iPhone maker had approached the medical device maker about using its pulse oximetry technology in 2013 but the negotiations fell through. Apple allegedly went on to poach about two dozen Masimo staffers to help it copy the technology.

Masimo sued the iPhone maker about three years ago for $3.1 billion in damages. The case ended with a mistrial in May, but the medical device maker indicated that it was planning to continue the litigation. According to Reuters, the appeal that Apple has filed against the import ban on its latest smartwatches could cost it millions of dollars in the event of an unfavorable ruling.

The company is reportedly “working on a range of legal and technical options” to lift the ban. As part of the effort, Apple is said to have floated the possibility of redesigning the affected Watch models in a way that will address Masimo’s patent infringement claims. Such a redesign might involve a software or hardware update to disable the devices’ pulse oximetry feature.

Apple first started shipping a pulse oximetry sensor with the Watch product series in 2020. The technology is also included in two of the three new devices that the company added to the smartwatch line this past September: the Watch Series 9 and the ruggedized Watch Ultra 3. The third wearable Apple debuted that month, the entry-level Watch SE, doesn’t include a pulse oximetry sensor and therefore isn’t subject to the import ban. 

Image: Apple