Apple has secured a major victory for its redesigned smartwatches as per the latest decision from the US International Trade Commission. The federal agency ruled against reinstating an import ban on Apple Watches, allowing the tech giant to continue selling its devices with a reworked blood-oxygen monitoring technology. The ITC decided to terminate the case and refer to a preliminary ruling from one of its judges in March that claimed that Apple's redesigned smartwatches don't infringe on patents held by Masimo, the medical tech company that has long been embroiled in lawsuits surrounding the Apple Watch . Apple thanked the ITC in a statement, adding that "Masimo has waged a relentless legal campaign against Apple and nearly all of its claims have been rejected." We reached out to Masimo for comment and will update the story when we hear back. The latest decision could offer some closure to the longstanding legal feud between Masimo and Apple. The patent battle dates back to 2021 with Masimo's first filing against Apple that requested an import ban on Apple Watches. The ITC ended up ruling that Apple violated Masimo's patents, resulting in the previous import ban and the Apple Watch maker redesigning the blood-oxygen reading feature in certain models. However, Masimo wasn't satisfied with this conclusion and sought another import ban on the updated Apple Watch models. Now that the ITC has ruled against that, Masimo is left with the option to appeal the decision with the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. While Masimo may currently be on the losing side of this legal battle, it's confronting Apple on multiple fronts. In November, a federal jury sided with Masimo and ruled that Apple has to pay $634 million in a separate patent infringement case. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/apple-avoids-a-second-import-ban-for-its-redesigned-smartwatches-in-latest-court-ruling-175600668.html?src=rss
The US Department of Justice is siding with X, as the social media platform owned by Elon Musk navigates a criminal investigation unfolding in France. As first reported by The Wall Street Journal , the Justice Department characterized the French probe as "an effort to entangle the United States in a politically charged criminal proceeding aimed at wrongfully regulating through prosecution the business activities of a social media platform.” France launched its investigation into X in July, accusing the platform of manipulating its algorithm and "fraudulent data extraction." Months later, French authorities raided X's office in Paris and issued summonses to Musk and Linda Yaccarino, the former CEO of X, to appear for interviews on April 20 as part of the probe. According to WSJ , French officials are also investigating X for other charges, including disseminating CSAM and Holocaust denial. However, France's latest move to ask the Department of Justice for assistance has been stonewalled. “This investigation seeks to use the criminal legal system in France to regulate a public square for the free expression of ideas and opinions in a manner contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution," the DOJ wrote in letter, as seen by WSJ . An xAI official told WSJ that it's "grateful to the Justice Department for rejecting this effort by a prosecutor in Paris to compel our CEO and several employees to sit for interviews." The company spokesperson also said there was "no wrongdoing" and that it was a "baseless investigation." This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/doj-refuses-to-help-french-authorities-in-criminal-probe-of-x-162654518.html?src=rss
