The Apple Watch ban has been lifted — for now

The Apple Watch import ban has been put on pause, just a week after the company stopped sales of the Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2.

Apple confirmed to TechCrunch that the Series 9 and Ultra 2 are available once again in stores and will be in its online shop from Thursday, Dec. 28. How long they stay available for, though, is trickier to tell.

The road that's led up to this point has been a twisty one. Back in October, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) upheld a January ruling regarding Apple Watch's blood-oxygen tracking technology infringing a patent from medical tech company Masimo.

This led to an import ban, which was upheld after the Biden administration declined a presidential veto, leading Apple to pause sales of the products last week. As mentioned at the outset, the appeals court then put a pause on the ban, allowing the smartwatches to go on sale again (yep, it's all a bit complicated). The ban will now stay on pause until the appeals court makes its next move.

“We are thrilled to return the full Apple Watch lineup to customers in time for the new year. Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, including the blood oxygen feature, will become available for purchase again in the United States at Apple Stores starting today and from apple.com tomorrow by 12pm PT,” Apple told TechCrunch.

“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," it added.

So, how long will Apple's smartwatches be available for? It all depends on what happens next in the appeals court. The court has given the ITC until Jan. 10 to respond to Apple's request for a longer pause on the ban during the appeals process, per Reuters, so we should know more by then.