Apple stops selling some Apple Watches online
Apple has officially stopped selling the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 online in the US due to a patent dispute.
The tech giant halted sales of its latest smartwatches on its online stores at 3pm ET on Thursday.
Its website in the US states that the two models are ‘currently unavailable’ and provides no option to buy them.
Apple earlier this week announced that it would also halt sales of the two models at its stores after Sunday.
The ban was ordered by the International Trade Commission, which found that the blood oxygen sensor in smartwatches infringed on two patents owned by the medical technology company Masimo.
In October, the commission issued a cease-and-desist and limited inclusion order to Apple to force it to stop importing the Series 9 and Ultra 2 and selling them through first-party stores after a presidential review period ending on Christmas Day.
‘Following December 24, 2023, Apple no longer sells Apple Watch units in the United States with the ability to measure blood oxygen,’ reads fine print on the product pages.
President Joe Biden could veto the commission’s ban before December 25. However, Whit House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday said the decision will lie with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
Tai ‘has the President’s delegated authority to make these determinations’ and is ‘carefully considering all of the factors in this case’, said Jean-Pierre.
Apple shares dropped slightly on Thursday.
A spokesperson for Masimo said it is ‘willing to settle’.
‘We believe the path forward is to have honest, good-faith discussions with Apple to explore the various ways the parties could resolve their dispute,’ the spokesperson told the Daily Mail.
But Apple said its engineers are working to tweak algorithms that measure blood oxygen and is trying to come up with its own $17billion fix.
The tech company is allowed to continue selling the Apple Watch SE since it does not contain a blood oxygen sensor.
Third-party retailers like Best Buy can keep selling the two latest models.
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