Published :
Newly Released CBP Ruling Reveals Apple Watch Pulse Oximetry Redesign
March 10, 2024
By Dennis Crouch
Background
In January 2024, a confidential order from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) significantly impacted the ongoing legal battle between medical device company Masimo and tech giant Apple. The order, issued by CBP’s Exclusion Order Enforcement (EOE) Branch, has now been publicly released in redacted form.
The Apple Watch Redesign
Apple faced an exclusion order from the International Trade Commission (ITC) that would have blocked the import of infringing Apple Watches. To circumvent this, Apple swiftly modified its watch designs. The CBP EOE ruling determined that Apple’s redesigned watches, which disabled the infringing pulse oximetry functionality, fell outside the scope of the ITC’s exclusion order. Consequently, these watches could be legally imported and sold in the US.
Details of the Redesign
The exact details of Apple's redesign remain confidential, but we know that it involved both hardware and software changes:
- Hardware-level change: The watches are “hardcoded” at the factory with a new [REDACTED] designation.
- Software-level change: The pairing process between the watch and iPhone was modified to include a new [REDACTED] that disables the pulse oximetry feature when it detects the [REDACTED] designation on the watch hardware.
Reading between the lines, it appears that there is a simple hardware switch internal to the Apple Watch that instructs the linked iPhone not to activate Pulse-Ox readings. Although not explicitly stated in the decision, it seems Apple could easily re-enable the features through a future software update.
The redesigned watches:
- Prevent the Watch from engaging in any pulse oximetry functionality or measurement.
- Prevent the user from enabling any pulse oximetry functionality or measurement, including Blood Oxygen feature measurements or background measurements.
- Display a screen indicating that the Blood Oxygen feature is unavailable.
