The Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 with blood oxygen features will be banned from sale in the United States again, effective 5:00 pm ET on January 18, 2024.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has denied Apple’s request to pause the ban for the duration of its appeal of the ITC’s ruling that the devices infringe on two patents held by medical device company Masimo.
Here are the reasons the court denied Apple’s request for a pause on the ban:
Our determination is governed by four factors: (1) whether the movant has made a strong showing of likelihood of success on the merits; (2) whether the movant will be irreparably harmed absent a stay; (3) whether issuance of the stay will substantially injure the other parties interested in the proceeding; and (4) where the public interest lies.
Having considered all four factors, and the recent EOE Branch ruling, we lift the interim stay and deny Apple’s motion. We reach no conclusion on the merits of the appeal.
The US Customs agency ruled earlier this week that Apple’s proposed Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra software change, which removes the blood oxygen features, falls outside the scope of the ITC ruling. This means that US Customs found the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 do not infringe on Masimo patents so long as they don’t “contain pulse oximetry features.”
Top comment by Christian Wagner
Now the big question...what to do with current owners of the "offending" watches. Awhile I read that it does NOT affect the ones that have already been sold pre "ban". Another article I read mentions something about a software update that will disable the current ones as well. I am in the camp of yes I use it. My last doc checkup, they placed the finger one on me to get the info, and I asked if she could give me a sec and I fired up the Apple Watch sensor. In the end, there was a 1% +/- difference. My father found out he has COPD when he was having breathing issues and his watch was showing 84% oxygen so we called 911 and those numbers matched with the EMTs had, so he keeps and eye on it regularly with his watch, since wearing the finger one all over the place is not exactly possible.
I guess we wait and see how this is going to be handled with current owners but I can see lots of problems if they disable it via software update as it would put Apple between a rock and a hard place.
Apple will likely continue selling the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Apple Watch Series 9, but will disable the blood oxygen feature via a firmware update. The change will only apply to newly-sold Apple Watches in the United States. It won’t impact existing owners of an Apple Watch with pulse oximetry features.
We’ve reached out to Apple for comment and will update when we hear back.
The court document is below.
More to come…
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