After a pause in the ban, Apple resumes selling Apple Watches

After the sales and import bans were lifted, Apple resumed Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales.

Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales resume after a U.S. appeals court temporarily lifts the ban amid a patent dispute with medical device maker Masimo.

You can now purchase the newest Apple Watches directly from Apple. The Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 will be back in certain Apple stores starting today, and you can expect them to be more widely available by Saturday. Online sales will resume tomorrow at 3 PM ET, according to Apple spokesperson Nikki Rothberg.

Sales resumption comes shortly after a federal appeals court temporarily lifted a ban on sales and imports of both the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2. Apple faced a ban on selling these products in the US following a finding by the US International Trade Commission that the company had infringed on patents held by medical device maker Masimo.

The appeals court granted Apple permission to continue selling its watches temporarily while awaiting a decision on proposed modifications to address the patent concerns. The US Customs and Border Protection is set to assess these changes on January 12th. If this review is unsuccessful, the court is considering whether to suspend the ban until it can rule on the underlying patent dispute, potentially leading to a significant delay in enforcing the ban.

Nikki Rothberg, an Apple spokesperson, expressed the company’s satisfaction with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit temporarily staying the exclusion order. Rothberg stated in an email, “Apple’s teams have worked tirelessly over many years to develop technology that empowers users with industry-leading health, wellness, and safety features, and we are pleased the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has stayed the exclusion order while it considers our request to stay the order pending our full appeal.”

Before the ban took effect on December 26th, Apple had already removed the Series 9 and Ultra 2 from both its online and physical stores. The ban specifically targets devices equipped with a blood oxygen saturation sensor, a feature introduced by Apple in its flagship watch in late 2020 the Series 6. The lower-priced Apple Watch SE, which lacks this sensor, has remained on sale.

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While third-party retailers were permitted to continue selling their existing stock of Apple Watches during the ban, the import restriction would have eventually hindered them from obtaining additional units.