The long-running legal saga between Apple and Masimo over the Apple Watch’s blood oxygen sensor has reached a critical new phase. Earlier this week, Apple took its case to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to overturn the import ban on its latest smartwatches.
For those who need a quick catch-up, this all started back in 2021 when medical technology company Masimo accused Apple of infringing on its patents for pulse oximetry.
The dispute escalated in late 2023 when the International Trade Commission (ITC) sided with Masimo, leading to an import ban on the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2.
After a brief pause in January 2024, the ban was reinstated in the same month, forcing Apple to take the dramatic step of disabling the blood oxygen feature on all new Apple Watches sold in the US.
The new battleground
Since then, and Tim Cook’s February 2024 comments that Apple was focused on appealing the ban rather than settling with Masimo, there has been considerable silence on the matter. Even the latest Apple smartwatch, the Apple Watch Series 10, arrived without support for the Blood Oxygen app enabled in the US.
However, at the latest court hearing, Apple’s legal team presented a new line of argument. Attorney Joseph Mueller argued that the ban was unfair to the “millions of Apple Watch users”.
They reportedly pointed out that the import ban was placed on Apple devices when Masimo’s own competing smartwatch, the W1, was still in the prototype stage (and didn’t launch until 2022) – two years after Apple had introduced pulse oximetry in the Apple Watch Series 6.
Apple’s argument is that a patent dispute over a hypothetical product shouldn’t be enough to pull a flagship device from the shelves.
Masimo’s lawyer, Joseph Re, accused Apple of attempting to “rewrite the law” and insisted that a finished product wasn’t necessary for the ITC’s ruling to be valid.
What happens now?
While previous attempts by Apple to invalidate Masimo’s patents have failed, this new angle of attack seems to have gained some traction with the appeal court judges.
According to Reuters, the justification for the ban was questioned, given the timeline of Masimo’s own product development.
For now, though, the overall outcome of the appeal remains to be seen—and we’ll continue to follow all the latest developments over the coming weeks and months.
A win for Apple would not only restore a key feature to its more recent smartwatches in the US but could also set a precedent for future patent disputes in the wearables world.
