Sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 will be halted again in the US starting at 5pm tomorrow, January 18, due to the rejection of Apple’s offer to pause the sales ban for the duration of its appeal of an International Trade Commission ruling that found the blood oxygen feature infringed its patents. of the medical technology company Masimo.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit formally denied the request earlier today (via 9to5Mac), depending on a number of factors in question such as whether or not Apple had a good chance of succeeding on appeal (although the court also took pains to note that such a denial did not reflect on the merits of the appeal overall).
Meanwhile, Apple has another avenue available to avoid being grounded: US Customs said earlier in the week that it would consider a software update that disabled the Apple Watch’s blood oxygen sensing features to put the devices outside the scope of the ITC’s ban, meaning… The company could effectively continue to sell them if a firmware update pushes to turn off all pulse oximeters.
Still, Apple’s appeal will remain, which doesn’t mean it won’t eventually win that one, which would allow sales to resume with blood oxygen features included. It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow when the deadline hits at 5pm ET.
For those keeping track, this means that current Apple Watch models have now been removed from sale, have resumed sales, and are awaiting another sales hiatus, all in less than a month.