After a surprising announcement that Apple would need to stop selling the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 due to a legal battle, the Cupertino firm has removed these smartwatches from its online store.
At the moment of this writing, the only Apple Watch available in the Apple Store Online is the Apple Watch SE 2. The reason behind this is that the SE doesn’t feature the blood oxygen monitor, which, according to the US International Trade Commission, is why these watches have halted sales.
ITC agreed that Apple infringed two of Masimo’s blood oxygen patents in October. This decision was sent to Biden’s Administration for the Presidential Review Period, which expires December 25.
Biden could revoke ITC’s decision or comply – but we don’t have an answer just yet. For that, Apple is now removing the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 from its online stores before it does the same in physical stores. If the Biden Administration complies with the ITC decision, on December 24, Apple will no longer officially sell its latest smartwatches.
At the moment, it’s unclear if Apple plans for a settlement, licensing agreement, development of new technology, turning off this feature, or just complying with the ban and shocking everyone with this unprecedented Apple Watch ban.
That being said, if you’re planning to buy an Apple Watch Series 9 or Ultra 2 but haven’t done that, there’s still time, as third-party sellers can continue to sell these devices until their stock ends.
Amazon, for example, continues to sell both the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, while the same is worth it for BestBuy, which sells these devices here and here, respectively.
Below, you can see the statement shared with 9to5Mac about this decision:
A Presidential Review Period is in progress regarding an order from the U.S. International Trade Commission on a technical intellectual property dispute pertaining to Apple Watch devices containing the Blood Oxygen feature. While the review period will not end until December 25, Apple is preemptively taking steps to comply should the ruling stand. This includes pausing sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 from Apple.com starting December 21, and from Apple retail locations after December 24.
Apple’s teams work tirelessly to create products and services that empower users with industry-leading health, wellness, and safety features. Apple strongly disagrees with the order and is pursuing a range of legal and technical options to ensure that Apple Watch is available to customers.
Should the order stand, Apple will continue to take all measures to return Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 to customers in the U.S. as soon as possible.
