The U.S. International Trade Commission has agreed to open an investigation to determine whether the Apple Watch infringes on patents held by health tech company AliveCor.
Credit: Andrew O'Hara, AppleInsider
On Monday, the USITC said it voted to open an inquiry into the alleged patent infringement. The vote follows an official filing by AliveCor back in April.
The USITC said it would announcement a target data for completing the investigation within 45 days.
AliveCor is a company that makes electrocardiogram (ECG) hardware and related services. The company lodged a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple in December 2020, claiming that the Apple Watch infringes on its intellectual property related to using wearable sensors for cardiac monitoring.
The company was the first to debut a consumer ECG device, the KardiaBand, cleared by the Food and Drug Administration. Unlike the Apple Watch, use of the KardiaBand had to be approved by a user's doctor. And, after Apple debuted ECG capabilities on the Apple Watch Series 4, AliveCor pulled the KardiaBand from sale.