Redesigned Apple Watch Blood Oxygen feature faces new ITC scrutiny

3 hours ago 1

In August, Apple launched a “redesigned” version of the Apple Watch’s Blood Oxygen feature in the United States. This came 18 months after Apple started selling the Apple Watch without the Blood Oxygen feature in due to a patent dispute with health technology company Masimo.

The International Trade Commission (ITC) now says that it is holding a new proceeding to decide if this solution should also be banned due to the Masimo patent dispute.

In new filings today, the ITC said it “has determined to institute a combined modification and enforcement proceeding” to determine whether the redesigned Apple Watch blood oxygen feature is permitted under the initial ITC import ban. The decision was made following a complaint from Masimo.

According to the ITC, conditions have changed because Apple is now selling a redesigned watch that wasn’t part of the original investigation. This, in turn, justifies the revisiting and will be the “sole issue to be resolved” in the proceeding.

The review includes the question of whether Apple causes infringement by selling an Apple Watch that, once paired with an iPhone, performs the disputed features.

Essentially, the ITC is evaluating not just what the Apple Watch does on its own, but whether the watch and iPhone together trigger the patented technology.

Apple’s new implementation of the blood oxygen feature on Apple Watch centers around viewing the results from a test on the iPhone rather than the watch. You start a session using the Blood Oxygen feature on your Apple Watch and the sensors on your Apple Watch will then collect the necessary data.

The results, however, aren’t viewable on the Apple Watch itself. Instead, you can find them in the Respiratory section of the Health app on your iPhone.

For its part, an Apple spokesperson disputes Masimo’s complaint with the ITC and says the company is attempting to pressure the ITC to block Apple Watch users in the US from accessing key health features. The company also points out that Masimo’s initial ITC complaint was based on a Masimo Watch that didn’t exist at the time.

In 2024, a jury ruled that Masimo’s W1 and Freedom watches “willfully violated Apple’s patent rights in smartwatch designs.” The W1 is no longer sold to consumers.

“Through its parallel district court litigation and the present petition, Masimo seeks to pressure the Commission to exceed its statutory authority and prevent millions of Americans from accessing Apple’s redesigned Blood Oxygen feature,” Apple says in its latest filing in the ITC case. “Masimo has no meaningful domestic industry product that would benefit from this exclusion—its asserted domestic industry product, the Masimo W1, has still not been sold in more than de minimis quantities even two years after the conclusion of the underlying Investigation, and Masimo no longer sells any version of the Masimo W1 to consumers.”

“Masimo’s latest filings only reinforce that Masimo has been abusing the powers of the Commission by seeking to exclude important consumer products to ‘protect’ a nonexistent domestic industry,” Apple continues.

The ITC says it expects to make a decision within six months.

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