Apple urges U.S. appeals court to overturn ITC’s Apple Watch import ban

Apple on Friday urged a U.S. appeals court to overturn a U.S. trade court’s decision to ban the import of some Apple Watches in a patent dispute with medical monitoring technology company Masimo.

Apple told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the ITC’s decision was based on “a series of materially flawed patent rulings” and that Masimo failed to demonstrate that it had invested in producing competing U.S. products to justify the order.

Representatives for Apple and Masimo did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the filing.

Irvine, California-based Masimo accused Apple of poaching its employees and stealing its pulse oximeter technology after discussions about a potential partnership. Apple first introduced pulse oximetry in 2020 with its Series 6 Apple Watch.

Masimo found that the blood oxygen level reading technology of Apple’s latest Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches infringed Masimo’s patents, and on December 26, it persuaded the ITC to ban the import of Apple’s latest Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches.

Apple temporarily resumed sales of the watch the next day after convincing the Federal Circuit Court to suspend the ban. An appeals court reinstated the ban in January, leading Apple to remove the pulse oximetry feature from watches sold during the appeal, which Apple said was likely to last for at least a year.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection separately ruled in January that the redesigned version of the watch did not infringe Masimo’s rights and therefore would not be subject to the ban. Massimo said in a court filing that the watches “absolutely do not contain pulse oximeter functionality.”

Apple told the Federal Circuit on Friday that the injunction could not stand because the Masimo wearable device covered by the patent was “purely hypothetical” when it filed the ITC lawsuit in 2021.

The tech giant also argued that Masimo’s patents were invalid and that its watches did not infringe them.

© Thomson Reuters 2024