A US judge has restarted the ban on sales of Apple’s latest smartwatches. This is despite Apple’s promise to remove the Blood Oxygen feature from the new Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 series. With this, the tech giant wanted to circumvent an import ban in the US. It planned to do so in response to a lawsuit from developer Masimo.
Update 18-01-2024 (Erik van Klinken): this post has been updated with news that a U.S. judge has restarted the ban on Apple’s latest smartwatches.
Apple may be going to remove Blood Oxygen functionality from the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches. This is according to a letter the company sent to US courts.
With this, Apple wanted to evade a possible import ban on these devices in the U.S., but it appears to have been unsuccessful.
As of today, Apple is no longer allowed to sell a new Apple Watch Series 9 or Ultra 2 within the United States.
Redesign
Earlier, Apple came up with a redesign of the Series 9 and Ultra 2 Apple Watches. The company submitted these to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). That agency recently ruled that these redesigns did not meet the US International Trade Commission’s (ITC) import ban rules and thus could be imported into the US.
Patent dispute and hijacking of personnel
Apple has been in a patent dispute with developer Masimo for some time over the oxygen measurement functionality in the Apple Watch versions in question. Masimo accuses Apple of infringing on certain patents in addition to stealing away personnel.
In October 2023, the ITC therefore decided to impose an import ban on the Series 9 and Ultra 2 devices for the US. However, an interim decision in the month of December last year allowed Apple to get the smartwatches back into the U.S. market, in part because of the changes now made. That does not appear to be enough as of now.
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