Apple on Friday urged a US appeals court to overturn a US trade tribunal’s decision to ban the import of some Apple Watches in a patent dispute with medical-monitoring technology company Masimo.
Apple told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the U.S. International Trade Commission’s decision was based on “a series of substantially flawed patent decisions” and that Massimo failed to show that it had invested in creating a competing U.S. product that warranted the order. Will justify. ,
Representatives for Apple and Masimo did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the filing.
Irvine, California-based Massimo has accused Apple of hiring its employees and stealing its pulse oximetry technology after discussing a possible collaboration. Apple first introduced pulse oximetry in its Series 6 Apple Watches in 2020.
On December 26, Massimo convinced the ITC to block imports of Apple’s latest edition Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches after it found that their technology for reading blood-oxygen levels infringed Massimo’s patents.
Apple temporarily resumed selling the watches the day after convincing the Federal Circuit to block the ban. The appeals court reinstated the ban in January, causing Apple to remove pulse oximetry capabilities from watches sold during the appeal, which Apple has said could last at least a year.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection separately determined in January that the redesigned versions of the watches do not infringe Masimo’s rights and would not be subject to the ban. Massimo said in a court filing that the watches “certainly do not include pulse oximetry functionality.”
Apple told the Federal Circuit on Friday that the ban could not be afforded because the Masimo wearable covered by the patent was “purely hypothetical” when it filed its ITC complaint in 2021.
The tech giant also argued that Massimo’s patents were invalid and that its watches did not infringe them.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
