Apple announced on Monday that it will halt the sales of its popular Apple Watch following a patent dispute ruling against the company.
The tech company said in a statement that it plans to stop selling the Series 9 and Ultra 2 versions of its smartwatch for U.S. customers this week. Apple will stop online sales on Thursday and in-store sales on Sunday.
“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,” Apple said in a statement to Fwrd Axis News. “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.”
The move comes following an ITC ruling as part of a long-running patent dispute between Apple and medical technology company Masimo around the Apple Watch’s blood oxygen sensor technology.
“Apple’s teams work tirelessly to create products and services that empower users with industry-leading health, wellness, and safety features,” the statement continued. “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.”
The restrictions on the two Apple Watch models will cost Apple about $300-400 million in holiday-season sales, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives estimated.
“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,” a representative for Apple said. “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 US as soon as possible.”