Apple watches RETURN to US store shelves following temporary ban – and shoppers can scoop one up TODAY

Apple has resumed sales of its latest watches, a day after an appeals court suspended a sales ban in the US.

The tech giant announced it would resume sales of its latest models – the Apple Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 – in stores on Wednesday.

It said customers can purchase the smartwatches online Thursday starting at noon Pacific Time or 3 p.m. Eastern Time.

Apple halted all sales of its latest models on Christmas Eve, following a patent lawsuit brought by biotech company Masimo that the company lost in October.

The White House had a December 26 deadline to veto the International Trade Commission (ITC) order, but did not intervene. But on Wednesday, a federal appeals court temporarily overturned the ban after an emergency appeal from Apple.

The company has asked the court to halt the ban until a decision from US Customs on January 12 on whether the tech giant's proposed updated watches can avoid Masimo patents.

Masimo has accused Apple of hiring its employees, stealing its pulse oximetry technology (used to measure blood oxygen levels) and integrating it into Apple Watches.

California-based Masimo sued Apple in federal court in 2020 and again in 2021 after the release of the Apple Watch Series 6, the first model with the blood oxygen feature.

In October, the ITC announced its ruling, finding that the devices infringed two patents owned by Masimo.

The ban did not apply to the cheaper Apple Watch SE, which is available online from $249. The Series 9 and Ultra 2 are available for $399 and $799 respectively.

The watches also remained available at other retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, Costco and Walmart.

Masimo has accused Apple of hiring his employees and stealing his pulse oximetry technology

Following its successful appeal, Apple said in a statement: “We are pleased that 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.”

While it's a victory for the company, the fate of the smartwatches' sales, service and repairs depends on how the case plays out in federal court in the coming weeks.

The federal appeals court gave the Commission until January 10 to respond to Apple's request for a longer pause in enforcing the ban.

The company claimed it could “suffer irreparable harm” due to its inability to sell its “most popular” smartwatch models.

The announcement comes after an email from a former Masimo scientist to Tim Cook surfaced.

Bloomberg shared the 2013 email from Marcelo Lamego, who promised to make Apple “the #1 brand in the medical, fitness and wellness market” with his knowledge of medical devices.

Masimo's lawyers claimed that Lamego had no prior knowledge of such technologies and used Masimo's sensors to develop them in the Apple Watch Series 6.

Lamego was hired by Masimo as a scientific researcher in 2003 and became CTO for Ceracaor about three years later.

The announcement comes after an email from a former Masimo scientist to Tim Cook surfaced

The 2013 email from Marcelo Lamego, who promised to make Apple “the #1 brand in the medical, fitness and wellness market” with his knowledge of medical devices

Apple reportedly offered Lamego a job at the company in 2013 when the tech giant met with Masimo for a potential acquisition that never materialized.

Lamego turned down the offer but reconsidered after being passed over as Masimo's CTO, lawyers for the biotech company claim.

Lamego was hired by Apple in 2014 and he “filed numerous patent applications on behalf of Apple on technologies in which he was closely involved with plaintiffs Cercacor and Masimo,” the lawsuit alleges.

The scientist is also named as an inventor on an August 2014 patent titled “Reflective Surface Treatments for Optical Sensors,” along with several others.

“Lamego had unfettered access to plaintiffs' highly confidential technical information. He was trained and mentored at Masimo by the most skilled engineers and scientists and learned the keys to effective non-invasive monitoring, something he had not been involved in prior to Masimo,” the lawsuit alleges.

“He was also exposed to guarded secrets about mobile medical products, including key technology and forward-thinking plans for future products.”

Lamego left Apple just seven months after being hired.