Apple dodges itc bullet, but masimo fight is far from dead
An ITC judge ruled hours ago that apple's redesigned Watch models likely don't infringe Masimo's blood-oxygen patents. That sounds like a win. It isn't — not yet, and maybe not ever cleanly.
A $634 million verdict and a ban that forced apple to get creative
Rewind to late 2023. The US International Trade Commission found that the apple Watch Series 9 and apple Watch Ultra 2 violated patents held by Masimo, a medical tech company out of Irvine, California. The result: apple was temporarily blocked from importing those models into the US. The company's response was swift and characteristically surgical — strip the blood-oxygen feature out entirely, get the redesigned hardware cleared by US Customs and Border Protection, then quietly reintroduce a modified version of the technology in August. In the revised implementation, blood-oxygen readings are processed and displayed on a connected iPhone rather than on the watch itself. Clever engineering, or a legal workaround dressed up as product design? Masimo filed a separate lawsuit challenging that customs approval, so the courts will have a say.
What the itc judge actually said, and why it matters less than it sounds
The preliminary ruling from the ITC judge is encouraging for apple, but it's a long way from final. The full commission still has to review and confirm — or reject — that decision. That process takes time, and Masimo's legal team isn't packing up. Meanwhile, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit separately confirmed the original 2023 ruling: Apple's older watch design did infringe Masimo's patents. That precedent doesn't disappear just because the hardware changed.
Apple, for its part, issued a statement saying it is pleased with the ITC's preliminary finding and will evaluate all avenues for further review of the Federal Circuit ruling. The company also noted that over the past six years, Masimo has filed dozens of claims against Apple, and that nearly all of them have been rejected. Masimo's representatives had not commented to Reuters at the time of publication.
The deeper accusation nobody should gloss over
The dispute isn't just about patents on paper. Masimo has accused Apple of actively recruiting its engineers and using their internal expertise to build out pulse-oximetry technology — the kind that measures blood oxygen levels — for the Apple Watch. That's a specific and serious allegation. It's the kind of claim that, if substantiated, goes well beyond standard patent litigation into questions about how Silicon Valley acquires competitive advantage. A federal jury already ordered Apple to pay $634 million in damages over the blood-oxygen monitoring patents. That verdict hasn't been erased by the ITC's preliminary finding.
Apple's legal machinery is formidable, and the company has clearly invested in engineering its way around the ban rather than simply waiting out the courts. But Masimo isn't a small player swinging at a giant for a settlement check — it's a medical technology company with real IP at stake and, apparently, the resources and resolve to fight across multiple jurisdictions simultaneously. The ITC, the Federal Circuit, and now a separate challenge to the customs approval: this case is running on multiple tracks at once, and the judge's ruling today closes exactly none of them. Apple bought itself some breathing room. The bill, in one form or another, is still coming.