A US federal jury verdict sees Apple required to pay $634 million to medical technology company Masimo for patent infringement. The lawsuit was related to the blood oxygen sensing technology used in the Apple Watch, reports Reuters.
Masimo was pleased by the verdict, Apple less so.
“We are pleased by this outcome, and appreciate the time and attention given to our case by the court and the jury,” said Masimo in a press release.” This is a significant win in our ongoing efforts to protect our innovations and intellectual property, which is crucial to our ability to develop technology that benefits patients. We remain committed to defending our IP rights moving forward.”
“Over the past six years (Masimo has) sued Apple in multiple courts and asserted over 25 patents, the majority of which have been found to be invalid,” an Apple spokesperson told Reuters. “The single patent in this case expired in 2022, and is specific to historic patient monitoring technology from decades ago.”
The patent dispute led to a ban on U.S. sales of Apple Watch with the blood oxygen feature enabled in December 2023. While Apple had been able able to temporarily continue selling the Apple Watch models during the appeal, the ban was reinstated as of January 18, 2024.
On August 14 2025, Apple released iOS 18.6.1 and watchOS 11.6.1, which brought a “redesigned” blood oxygen feature back to affected Apple Watch models. The restored feature relies on the a paired iPhone to process the Blood Oxygen sensor data from the Apple Watch. Results are then viewed in the Respiratory section of the Health app, instead of on the Apple Watch’s display, as it had done before.
While the change satisfied U.S. Customs regulators that had been charged with enforcing the original ban, Masimo disagreed, filing another lawsuit in an attempt to overturn the U.S. Customs decision and once again prevent Apple from selling Apple Watch models with the blood oxygen feature in the U.S., but there has yet to be a ruling in that lawsuit.
