Earlier at this time, 9to5Mac reported that Apple is ready to halt gross sales of the Apple Watch Sequence 9 and Apple Watch Extremely 2 later this week following an ITC ruling. That ruling got here as a part of a long-running patent dispute between Apple and medical know-how firm Masimo.
A brand new report this night now corroborates that one avenue Apple is exploring, if the ITC ban is upheld, is a software program change to watchOS 10.
The most recent on an Apple Watch ban
The Worldwide Commerce Fee introduced its ruling in October, discovering that Apple Watch’s blood oxygen sensor infringes on two Masimo patents, masking 5 totally different cases of patent infringements.
The case is at present in its 60-day Presidential Assessment Interval, now set to run out on December 25. The Biden administration can step in and veto the ITC ban however has chosen to not act thus far.
As we have been first to report on Monday morning, Apple is planning to preemptively take away the Apple Watch Extremely 2 and Apple Watch Sequence 9 from its on-line retailer within the US after 3 p.m. ET on December 21. In-store gross sales will come to a halt after December 24.
In my preliminary protection of this example, I famous that Apple has a number of paths ahead on this case, together with making software program modifications to watchOS to work across the two Masimo patents.
Bloomberg now experiences that Apple engineers are “racing to make modifications to algorithms on the gadget that measure a consumer’s blood oxygen degree.” Apple’s hope is that it may possibly change how the Apple Watch “determines oxygen saturation and presents the information to clients.”
“It’s a high-stakes engineering effort in contrast to any Apple has undertaken earlier than,” the report says. Nonetheless, the patents contested by Masimo are largely associated to {hardware} features of the Apple Watch’s blood oxygen sensor.
Work inside Apple means that the corporate believes software program modifications — slightly than a extra difficult {hardware} overhaul — will likely be sufficient to carry the gadget again to retailer cabinets. However the patents on the coronary heart of the dispute are largely associated to {hardware}, together with how gentle is emitted into the pores and skin to measure the quantity of oxygen in an individual’s blood.
An Apple spokeswoman confirmed to Bloomberg that it’s “engaged on submitting a workaround to the US customs company, which is accountable for approving modifications to get a product again available on the market.”
Masimo, nevertheless, says that the Apple Watch’s “{hardware} wants to vary” and {that a} software program repair wouldn’t be ample.
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