Dispute over blood oxygen measurement: Apple Watch in the USA again in court

Even if it does not exist in Europe, where the patent dispute does not exist: Apple has deleted an important function from its Apple Watch in the USA since the end of 2023 – on the order of the American International Trade Commission (ITC). And that should stay that way for a long time: the Masimo company, which had sued Apple because you see its patents in the area of ​​the blood oxygen measurement, is at least currently in law. But now Apple is trying to tip the import ban:

“Apple wants to rewrite law”

This time it should regulate an appointment that the iPhone group submitted to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. According to one Reuters report Apple lawyer Joseph Mueller argued this week that the ITC’s decision “has disadvantaged millions of Apple watch users” because the blood oxygen measurement, technical term pulsexymmetry, remains prohibited.

Opponent Masimo, a medical device manufacturer and mixed group, naturally sees it differently. Apple simply try to “rewrite the law” on its reason. According to Apple, the Masimo patent was “completely hypothetical” when the lawsuit was first submitted before ITC in 2021. Masimo also accuses Apple of industrial espionage, supposedly Apple has elaborated employees and used their technology.

Back and forth in the ban

Apple had the blood oxygen measurement, which, however, generally considered rather imprecise and, above all, not as medically, introduced the Apple Watch Series 6 in 2020. Masimo himself had launched her own watch with the technology two years later. In 2023, the company then managed to prove the clocks Ultra 2 and Series 9 with an import ban. Apple turned the function to be able to sell the devices in the USA, whereby it initially looked that the ban was lifted. In the meantime, the devices – including the successor models such as the Series 10 – are still on the market in the USA without blood oxygen measurement.

It remains to be seen how things are going on in the case. So far, the court has not indicated a direction in which it tends. Among other things, Apple argues that the ITC decision could only have come if Masimo had had a real product on the market when the complaint was submitted. “But they only had prototypes,” said the group. The procedure bears the current number 24-1285 at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.