Apple is appealing a decision by the U.S. ITC that forced it to stop selling Apple Watch models after the agency claimed that Apple violated patents of a competitor.
Joseph Pisani for The Wall Street Journal:
Apple said in court documents filed Tuesday the company will suffer “irreparable harm” if the ban stays in place, since the models are its two most popular. The watch models affected are its newest ones: the Apple Watch Series 9 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2.
The iPhone maker asked the court to allow it to sell the watches while it considers Apple’s appeal.
Apple said Tuesday it disagrees with the agency’s decision and is taking measures to restart watch sales to U.S. customers as soon as possible.
The ban came about after the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled in October that Apple violated patents related to a blood-oxygen sensor on some versions of the device.
The case revolves around medical-technology company Masimo, which alleged in a 2021 complaint that Apple violated its patents. Apple has included a sensor, called a pulse oximeter, in most new models of the Apple Watch since 2020.
MacDailyNews Take: The saga that never should have happened continues.
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I don’t understand why older models and the watches in other countries are not affected.
Able to read?
Patents are region specific. Hence the ban is US only. Despite the court being a so-called international court.
Clearly Masimo holds a US patent, which Apple was ruled to have violated. So Masimo can say who does and who does not get to play with their ball. And since Apple manufactures the APple Watch off shore, it’s not only a sales ban, its and import ban and even a laboratory ban.
as apple was poaching masimo engineers to attempt to reverse engineer the sensors. sometimes its worth licensing technology in case the ip is too hard to circumvent
How odd that Masimo only filed for the patent in the US. It may just be that the legal costs of losing should they file in every country they hold the patent in would be too high. Rather they are likely waiting for the win then ban everywhere should it go through in the US.
Apple should buy Masimo and shut it down
Gee, legally that’ll go down well!
If Masimo is willing to sell.
“Apple said in court documents filed Tuesday the company will suffer “irreparable harm” if the ban stays in place…”
Certainly if you violated the law Apple, the “harm” is justified.
That said, I have to laugh and cry crocodile tears for the first 3 trillion company in history.
SHEEZ…
Apple should settle with Masimo.
Very surprising that they haven’t done so, and it has gotten to this point.
Seems like malpractice of some sort (speaking as a shareholder).
Apple is appealing a U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) decision that has forced the company to stop selling its two most popular models, the Apple Watch Series 9 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2, in the United States. In court documents, Apple argued that it will suffer “irreparable harm” if the sales ban remains in place.