If you don’t get an Apple Watch for Christmas, you might not get one at all.
Apple announced on Monday (December 18) that it is stopping US sales of its higher-end Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 models, pending a patent dispute with medical device company Masimo over technology that measures blood oxygen levels. You can still get an Apple Watch SE if you want, because it doesn’t have that feature.
The watches have only been available since September, but now consumers only have until December 21 to buy them online. They will still be available in the store after that, but only until December 24th.
The dispute goes back to early 2020, when Apple applied for patents on the blood oxygen reading technology. Such grievances have become common among smaller companies that work with Apple to develop new features and technology, according to the Wall Street Journalalthough Apple denied to the newspaper that it was stealing ideas.
Will Apple be happy again?
Masimo, which was working on a similar feature, sued Apple for trade secret infringement. That suit ended in a mistrial, but Masimo appealed separately to the International Trade Commission (ITC), a US body that adjudicates trade-related intellectual property disputes. The ITC sided with Masimo and ordered Apple to stop importing the watches from Asia for sale in the USA.
It is possible that President Joe Biden could veto the ITC decision by a Dec. 25 deadline and allow sales to continue, but U.S. presidents rarely make such moves. Apple was lucky back in 2012, when Barack Obama An ITC ban vetoed on certain iPhone and iPad sales, but it’s not clear the company will be so lucky again. This time last year, the ITC ruled that the Apple Watch infringed a patent of another medical device firm, AliveCor, and in February the Biden administration announced that it will not veto that statement.
