The smart ring market’s US legal battle: Oura, Samsung and the fight over a form factor

In April 2024 the US International Trade Commission opened Investigation No. 337-TA-1398, “Certain Smart Wearable Devices, Systems, and Components Thereof,” based on a complaint by Ouraring, Inc. and Ōura Health Oy. The complaint alleged that smart rings imported by India-based Ultrahuman, China-based RingConn and France-based Circular infringed Oura’s patents on the ring form factor. The case was later narrowed to five claims of a single patent, US Patent No. 11,868,178 [R25].

The administrative law judge found in Oura’s favour in April 2025, and on 21 August 2025 the Commission issued its final determination: a violation of Section 337 of the Tariff Act, a limited exclusion order barring infringing rings and components from entering the US, and cease-and-desist orders against five respondents [R25]. The exclusion order is specific, not general: it covers unlicensed products of the named respondents that infringe claims 1, 2 and 12–14 of the ’178 patent [R26].

The three respondents met different fates. Circular settled early, taking a multi-year royalty-bearing licence in June 2024. RingConn settled after the ruling: in October 2025 the companies announced a licence under which RingConn pays royalties and continues selling its rings and app in the US, alongside a separate licence for OMATE [R27]. Ultrahuman did not settle, and the exclusion and cease-and-desist orders against its rings took effect in October 2025 after the Presidential review period closed.

Section 337 investigations move faster than district court cases and carry a remedy no court can match: an exclusion order enforced at the border. A patent holder that wins at the ITC does not just collect damages—it can physically stop competing products from entering the country. That is why the ITC has become the venue of choice for hardware patent fights, and why Oura’s 2025 win reshaped the market within months.

The Commission also considered—and rejected—the argument that removing the respondents’ rings would harm US consumers or competition, and required no bond during the Presidential review period [R25]. In effect, the regulator decided that the smart ring market was competitive enough, and the patented form factor distinctive enough, that enforcing the patent did the public no injury.

For smaller wearable makers the lesson is structural: entering the US market with a product that resembles a patented form factor is now a bet-the-company decision, because the remedy arrives at the port of entry before any damages trial begins.

An exclusion order is powerful but not absolute, and the months after the August 2025 ruling showed both its teeth and its limits. Ultrahuman asked the Commission to stay the orders while it appealed; the Commission refused in December 2025, keeping the ban in force during the appeal.

Then, in March 2026, US Customs and Border Protection ruled that Ultrahuman’s redesigned Ring Pro was not subject to exclusion under the order—subject to conditions including an approved certification [R28]. The original order still stands; the ruling simply confirms that a sufficiently redesigned product can pass through it. Design-around is now the live question in the category’s engineering teams.

Licensing is the other door. Circular, RingConn and OMATE all sell in the US under Oura licences [R27]. The practical picture by early 2026: Oura’s patents had been enforced, but the market had not been cleared—rivals remained on sale through licences, settlements and redesigns, on terms Oura’s legal department helped set.

Samsung launched the Galaxy Ring in the US in July 2024, bringing the category its first global-scale challenger. It also saw the litigation coming: in May 2024, before the ring even shipped, Samsung filed a pre-emptive declaratory judgment action in the Northern District of California seeking a ruling that the Galaxy Ring did not infringe five Oura patents. The case was dismissed in March 2025 for lack of jurisdiction—not on the merits—after Oura filed statutory disclaimers on two of the asserted patents; the Federal Circuit dismissed Samsung’s appeal by agreement in August 2025 [R33].

The open conflict arrived at the end of 2025. In November, Oura filed a second ITC complaint, and on 18 December 2025 the Commission instituted Investigation No. 337-TA-1468 against Samsung and several other wearable makers, including Reebok-related companies, Zepp/Amazfit entities and Nexxbase, maker of the Luna Ring. The complaint asserts four patents, including the ’178 patent that carried the first case [R29].

The smaller respondents folded quickly: by January 2026 Nexxbase had submitted a consent order under which it would not import or sell the Luna Ring in the US, including existing inventory, for the life of the asserted patents. Samsung, however, did not fold.

Samsung answered with the same weapon. In December 2025 it filed its own Section 337 complaint against Oura, and on 14 January 2026 the ITC instituted Investigation No. 337-TA-1478, naming both Oura’s San Francisco subsidiary and its Finnish headquarters. Samsung asserts four of its own patents and seeks the same remedy Oura won: a limited exclusion order and cease-and-desist orders against Oura’s rings [R30].

The symmetry is deliberate. Each company now holds a proceeding that could, in principle, exclude the other’s products from the US market. An ITC investigation typically runs about a year to a final determination, so both cases are expected to conclude around the end of 2026 or early 2027—setting up a negotiated endgame in which each side’s leverage is its own exclusion order.

In parallel, the companies are fighting in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In February 2026 Oura moved to dismiss Samsung’s claims, arguing that three Samsung patents—US Patent Nos. 7,662,065, 9,008,973 and 12,324,655—claim abstract ideas implemented with generic computer processes, and that measuring resting heart rate with wearable sensors is not an inventive concept [R31].

Alongside the ITC and district court cases, Samsung challenged the validity of Oura’s patents at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board—the standard counter-move in US patent litigation, since killing the patent ends the infringement case with it.

In July 2026 the Board ruled against Samsung on the first of these challenges to reach a final written decision. Samsung failed to prove that US Patent No. 11,188,124 B2—covering a “wearable computing device in the shape of a ring” that can be worn for extended periods, take measurements and use an interior wall for sensing—was obvious in light of earlier inventions [R32].

One survived challenge does not end the matter: other patents and other petitions remain in play on both sides. But the direction of the first decisions—an ITC win in August 2025 and a PTAB win in July 2026—has so far run in Oura’s favour, and every surviving patent strengthens its hand in the negotiations most observers expect.

For consumers, the near-term effect is reduced choice at the budget end and stable choice at the premium end. Ultrahuman’s original rings remain excluded, though its redesigned Ring Pro has cleared customs [R28]; RingConn, Circular and OMATE sell under licence [R27]; Oura and Samsung both remain on sale while their cases proceed.

For retailers, resellers and anyone selling wearables into the US, the practical risk is inventory and roadmap exposure. An exclusion order can strand stock and marketing commitments with little warning, and a consent order can end a product line outright, as Luna’s US exit showed. Due diligence on a wearable supplier now reasonably includes a question that used to be reserved for smartphones: what is your patent position, and who has challenged it?

For the category, the likely endgame is cross-licensing. Oura has shown it will license rather than exclude where the counterparty negotiates [R27], and cross-licensing is the historical norm when two large portfolios collide. A Samsung–Oura deal would leave the market with two dominant players and a licensing toll for everyone else—competitive, but on terms set in legal departments.

Three events will decide the shape of this market. First, the two ITC investigations: Oura’s case against Samsung (337-TA-1468) and Samsung’s case against Oura (337-TA-1478) should reach final determinations around the turn of 2026–2027. An exclusion order against either party would transform the negotiating balance [R29][R30].

Second, the Texas court’s ruling on Oura’s motion to dismiss Samsung’s patents as ineligible abstract ideas. If the patents survive, Samsung’s leverage grows; if they fall, Samsung’s ITC case carries more of its weight [R31].

Third, further Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions. Samsung’s failed challenge to the ’124 patent is one skirmish; the validity of Oura’s broader form-factor claims, including the ’178 patent asserted in both ITC cases, remains the foundation everything else rests on [R32]. We will update this article as final determinations land.