Oura patent blocks Ultrahuman US imports
$70m/yr Oura of India
The ruling showed that smart rings are no longer a loose consumer gadget market, they are becoming a patent controlled market where access to U.S. shelves can be shut off by the company with the deepest IP moat. For Ultrahuman, this was not a small legal cost. It cut off imports into the market that drove 61% of revenue, forced a hardware redesign, and turned product roadmap speed into a survival issue.
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The key mechanism was an ITC limited exclusion order, which is more operationally dangerous than a normal damages case because it stops products at the border. The Commission issued the order on August 21, 2025, and Oura said the import and sales ban took effect after presidential review on October 21, 2025.
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Ultrahuman got back into the U.S. by changing the product, not by winning the original fight. U.S. Customs ruled on March 6, 2026 that Ring PRO, the redesigned ring, was outside the exclusion order, and Ultrahuman reopened U.S. pre orders on March 24, 2026.
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This helps explain why Oura and Whoop trade at a different scale. Oura reached an estimated $764M in revenue through June 2026 and an $11B valuation, while Whoop reached $1.1B annualized revenue and a $10.1B valuation. Both have larger cushions to absorb legal spend, channel disruption, and redesign cycles than Ultrahuman at $19.9M year to date revenue through June 2026.
Going forward, the category is likely to split between companies that own enough patents to police the form factor, and companies that must keep redesigning around those claims while building software revenue on top. For Ultrahuman, the next phase is proving Ring PRO can restore U.S. distribution fast enough that Power Plugs and other add on software can compound on a stable hardware base.