A while back we reported on how Bose sued Beats Electronics over patent infringements and saw how that after Apple bought Beats Electronics, it because their problem. Now, three months after the lawsuit was filed, Apple removed all Bose products from its online store. Let’s take a look at why that happened and what this implies.

Apple Removed All Bose Products from Its Online Store

The rumor the Apple would remove all Bose product from its online store first surfaced a week ago, but on Friday it was confirmed, when all Bose speakers and headphones disappeared from the Apple online store.

Apple’s store listed 17 Bose products before the withdrawal of the devices, including the popular noise-cancelling headphones, QuitComfort. What many people don’t know is that the noise-cancelling technology is why Apple removed all Bose products from its store.

As mentioned in the beginning of our article, Bose filed a lawsuit against Beats accusing them of infringing on its noise-cancelling patents. It was revealed last week that the two companies had settled.

It is not yet known if Apple removed all Bose products from its online store as a part of settlement or there’s another reason for this decision; the settlement between Bose and Beats remains confidential and it remain this way for an unlimited period of time.

A reason behind Apple’s decision to pull out all Bose products from the sore could be the public feud between Beats and Bose over sponsorship deals. For example, the NFL forbade its players to wear Beats products when doing interviews because the National Football League has an exclusive partnership with Bose, as the official audio sponsor of NFL. San Francisco quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, was fined $10,000 last week for wearing Beats headphones at a press conference.

Jimmy Iovine, cofounder of Beats, commented on this episode and said that he was thankful for it and that he knows that some players are putting tape over the Beats logo of their headphones to avoid getting fined from the NFL. He added, as a joke: It’s like, I can’t believe I’m this lucky. I feel like sending them the tape.