A federal court of Appeal has ordered Apple to immediately suspended the US sale of its latest smartwatch models in a feud over patents with health company Masimo.
Africa Today News, New York reports that the ban on certain Apple smartwatch models will come into effect Thursday (today) as the iPhone juggernaut is ordered to await the outcome of its appeal.
Masimo, based in southern California, filed a complaint to the US International Trade Commission (ITC) which decided in October to halt imports of the Apple Watch models over a patented technology for detecting blood-oxygen levels.
A court temporarily lifted the ban last month.
Apple manufactures the vast majority of its products overseas, predominantly in China, giving the ITC jurisdiction over the patent feud.
According to reports, Apple is planning to remove the technology for now from the smartwatches in question — the Series 9 and Ultra 2 — in a solution that Masimo has welcomed.
Masimo contends it invented the technology and that Apple poached key employees to win access to the know-how.
But the iPhone-maker contends that the ITC finding was in error and should be reversed, and appealed the decision in the federal appeals court.
The wait for that decision could reportedly last a year or more.
In another report, the co-founder of popular technology company, Apple, Steve Wozniak has reportedly been hospitalised in Mexico City after suffering a possible stroke, Africa Today News, New York reports.
According to a report by CNBC, the 73-year-old scientist and tech entrepreneur was scheduled to participate in a World Business Forum event in the Mexican capital’s Santa Fe neighbourhood.
A report by TMZ noted that Wozniak completed his speech at the event but later informed his wife that he was ‘feeling strange.’