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If Santa left you an Apple Watch Series 9 or an Ultra 2 model during the US spur of his Christmas run, congratulations! If you wanted one but didn’t get it, too bad.
The Biden administration declined to veto a US import ban on Apple’s flagship watch models. The United States International Trade Commission (ITC), a federal agency that adjudicates some intellectual property disputes, set a Christmas deadline for the president to step in and give Apple the gift of continued imports. Joe Biden didn’t do that, so Americans can’t buy the watches anymore because they’re manufactured in China and Vietnam.
The disagreement at the center of the ban stems from the technology Apple Watches use for their blood oxygen monitor features. A medical device company called Masimo said Apple’s version of the light-based pulse oximeter violated a patent for a similar piece of Masimo hardware, so it took Apple to court. That suit ended in a mistrial, but Masimo also sought intervention from the ITC, which gave it some relief.
“Today’s ruling by the USITC sends a powerful message that even the world’s largest company is not above the law,” said Masimo founder and CEO Joe Kiani at the time.
Apple’s clock ran out
The ITC ruling came down in October, but Apple kept the watches on shelves as it waited for a possible veto from the president. There was precedent for such action back in the Obama administration, which sided with Apple during its beef with Samsung over technology in certain iPhone and iPad models. But Biden wasn’t as friendly as his predecessor, declining to veto a similar ITC Apple Watch ban initiated by a different medical device company.
When the veto for the Masimo ruling didn’t come by Dec. 18, Apple announced that it would remove the Series 9 and Ultra 2 models from both its online and brick-and-mortar US stores by Christmas. Which means that if you can’t find one from some other supplier, you’re out of luck. You can still buy an SE2 model if you want, though it doesn’t have as many bells and whistles.
The tech giant is asking a federal court to step in and overrule the ITC, so maybe there’s hope in the future. “We strongly disagree with the USITC decision and resulting exclusion order, and are taking all measures to return Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 to customers in the US as soon as possible,” Apple said in a statement released to the media.
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