Apple urged the United States Cort of Appeals on Monday, July 7th to overturn a damaging 2023 International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling that required the Cupertino-based company to strip blood-oxygen monitoring features from its Apple Watch wearable fitness devices to evade a total import ban on the devices by regulators.
Apple complied with the ruling at the start of 2024, effectively disabling blood-oxygen monitoring features via software in all newly sold Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Series 9 and newer after the ruling found that Apple infringed on pulse-oximetry patents held by Masimo. Currently, only those owning Apple Watch devices sold before the ruling still have access to this key health feature today.
Representing Apple in front of a three-judge panel was attorney Joseph Mueller, who argued that the ban “deprived millions of Apple Watch users” of critical health features. On the other side of the aisle, representing Masimo, was attorney Joseph Re, who argued that Apple was attempting to use the court to “rewrite the law,” reports Reuters.
Apple has been fighting with Masimo in court since the latter sued Apple back in 2020 over the use of the blood-oxygen level sensory technology beginning with the Apple Watch Series 6.
At the time, Masimo hadn’t completed and brought a product to market at the time of their complaint and herein lies the leverage of Mueller’s arguments today. Two years later, however, Masimo launched the Masimo W1 wearable with its blood-oxygen level sensory technology. Re countered that this timeline is completely irrelevant and that Masimo has a case regardless of Apple’s attempt to moot the complaint.
Now that the opening arguments of the appeal are in, we’ll have to wait and see what the court comes up with next. Apple already failed to dismiss the lawsuit in the past, so it will be interesting to see if they’ll be successful this time around.