Michael M. Santiago
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) will abandon the blood oxygen feature on its smartwatches to circumvent a U.S. ban if a court appeal fails.
The US Border and Protection Agency approved the Apple (AAPL) workaround on Friday as the agency “decided that Apple’s redesign falls outside the scope” of an import ban, according to media reports from Bloomberg, Reuters, and others.
Medical technology company Masimo (NASDAQ:MASI) sued Apple (AAPL) in 2020 saying the blood oxygen feature infringes on several patents. Masimo (MASI) filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission seeking an Apple Watch import halt, alleging patent infringement, in June 2021.
In October the ITC granted a limited exclusion order and a cease-and-desist order against Apple (AAPL) over the patent, with only the Biden administration left to decide if the ban would be put into effect.
Apple (AAPL) said on Monday that it expects the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to rule on its motion for a stay for the entire appeal period as early as Tuesday, according to a Bloomberg report.
“Apple’s claim that its redesigned watch does not contain pulse oximetry is a positive step toward accountability,” Masimo said in a statement on Monday, according to Bloomberg. “It is especially important that one of the world’s largest and most powerful companies respects the intellectual property rights of smaller companies and complies with ITC orders when it is caught infringing.”
A U.S. appeals court on Friday stood by two earlier decisions by a patent tribunal that sided with Masimo (MASI) in its intellectual property dispute with Apple (AAPL) over pulse oximeter sensors in some Apple Watch models. The decisions by the appeals court refer to findings by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office concerning the blood oxygen sensors.