Apple has been sued for $634 million over an Apple Watch patent infringement – what does it mean for Apple Watch users?

• Apple has been fined $634 million in a long-running Apple Watch case
• It’s the result of a legal dispute between Apple and Masimo
• The health tech firm claimed Apple has infringed its patents

Apple has been locked in a legal dispute with medical tech company Masimo for years over the latter’s claim that the Apple Watch’s blood oxygen analysis violated its patents. Now, Masimo has been awarded a mammoth $634m in the case, and there are potentially significant implications for fans of the best Apple Watches.

The case traces back to 2020, when Masimo filed a lawsuit alleging that Apple had infringed upon several of Masimo’s patents. As a result of that case, Apple was banned from shipping smartwatches with its blood oxygen monitoring feature in the US – a ban that is still in place. That means that while Apple Watch fans in the rest of the world can use the feature, it’s disabled in any Apple smartwatches that reach the hands of American customers.

Technically, the decision didn’t stop Apple from selling the Apple Watch completely – as long as the blood oxygen feature was not present, Apple could continue shipping the device. That led to Apple implementing a solution whereby the blood oxygen monitoring tech is still present in the Apple Watch but is disabled on the software level for US customers.

Thanks to a creative workaround from Apple, there is one way to get blood oxygen monitoring on your Apple Watch, but it requires enlisting the help of an iPhone. That means it’s far from the streamlined method Apple first implemented and that the company no doubt wants to return to.

In any case, that was all before the latest court decision. Now, a jury has decided that Apple infringed upon Masimo’s intellectual property, with the $643m in damages set to become one of the largest fines for a consumer technology case in the history of the Central District of California court system.

What next?

Although a judgement has been reached, the case is far from over. That’s because Apple states it disagrees with the verdict and has signaled its intention to appeal. In a statement to AppleInsider, Apple said:

“We disagree with today's decision, which we believe is contrary to the facts. Masimo is a medical device company that does not sell any products to consumers. Over the past six years they have sued Apple in multiple courts and asserted over 25 patents, the majority of which have been found to be invalid. The single patent in this case expired in 2022, and is specific to historic patient monitoring technology from decades ago. We plan to appeal.”

That means that for now, nothing much changes. US-based Apple Watch customers will still be unable to use the Apple Watch’s blood oxygen feature, while users elsewhere should remain unaffected.

Until the appeal is heard and a decision is reached there, we suspect things will continue much as they are, with neither Apple nor Masimo appearing to be willing to give in.

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