[HN Gopher] U.S. judge rules Apple Watch infringed Masimo's puls...
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       U.S. judge rules Apple Watch infringed Masimo's pulse oximeter
       patent
        
       Author : bj-rn
       Score  : 39 points
       Date   : 2023-01-12 21:10 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
        
       | sosodev wrote:
       | Is there room for "convergent evolution" with patent law? It
       | seems to me that the odds of developing similar systems are very
       | high if two companies with light based sensors try to develop
       | pulse oximetery.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | mmastrac wrote:
         | Nope, you need to be quick to file.
         | 
         | There is, however, an exception: if an invention is likely to
         | be obvious to a person skilled in the art given access to prior
         | art, the invention is not considered not patentable
        
           | taeric wrote:
           | That exception is laughably weak in bleeding edge fields.
           | That is, if "skilled in the art" is limited in audience, than
           | that someone else "did it first" could be reduced to them
           | being the first to need to do it. Which is terrible in the
           | cases where everyone that goes down a route will have to
           | solve the same problem.
        
         | amelius wrote:
         | No. According to patent law, independent discovery does not
         | exist. And should it ever be proved otherwise, thousands of
         | patent attorneys would be found crying on the floor in fetal
         | position.
        
       | donmcronald wrote:
       | Are they even accurate enough to be useful? Today my Garmin watch
       | told me I was at 85% in the middle of the afternoon when I was
       | feeling pretty good and 100% towards the end of the day when I
       | was feeling a bit tired.
       | 
       | The way I understand it, and I could be totally wrong, that's
       | somewhere between dead and impossible within the span of 2 hours.
        
       | chollida1 wrote:
       | No mention of Garmin whose main watches all have Pulse ox sensors
       | in them, so either they licensed the tech or they have their own
       | implementation.
       | 
       | I'm glad I couldn't find Garmin here, I love their sensor data.
        
       | zamadatix wrote:
       | This article has a bit more detail
       | https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/apple-loses-first-round...
        
         | t-writescode wrote:
         | Interesting bit from this article:
         | 
         | > In November, a California federal judge ruled that a former
         | Masimo engineer stole trade secrets related to Masimo's pulse
         | oximetry technology. The judge blocked US sales by True
         | Wearables Inc.--a company launched by the engineer after a
         | stint at Apple--of the Oxxiom device "in its current iteration
         | that includes the trade secrets."
        
       | bdcravens wrote:
       | I hope they license it rather than disable the feature.
        
       | BuckyBeaver wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | factsarelolz wrote:
         | [flagged]
        
         | amf12 wrote:
         | Its not racist because it wasn't meant to be prejudicial or to
         | treat different races discriminately. It has an unfortunate
         | bias (without racist intent), that hopefully will reduce and go
         | away with better models. Apple and Google have already started
         | with their real skin tone processing in cameras.
        
           | a4isms wrote:
           | The comment you're replying to is obviously being sarcastic
           | and trying to "stir the pot."
           | 
           | But I will respond to you seriously. Most Americans who use
           | the word "racist" mean "intentionally and adversarially
           | racist," e.g. The three boys who called me a "spook" and
           | assaulted me on a Toronto subway platform in the early 1970s.
           | 
           | Apple and their feature is manifestly not that kind of
           | racist, and I think it's misleading to use the word racist by
           | itself as an adjective, because this is the connotation most
           | people associate with the word." (I personally only associate
           | that connotation with the noun "racist," as in "Hitler was a
           | racist.")
           | 
           | There is also a systemic kind of racism, where no one person
           | participating in a system is a racist, but the overall
           | outcome of the system's behaviour is to be discriminatory in
           | an unjust manner against people of a particular race. I think
           | that's something you acknowledge by saying that the outcome
           | of a bunch of people making what they felt were reasonable
           | choices in the system ended up making something with an
           | "unfortunate bias."
           | 
           | And from what I've read, Apple realize that sometimes a
           | product needs to evolve to be more inclusive and takes steps
           | to address that.
        
             | amf12 wrote:
             | That's a fair point. I agree that there could be systemic
             | racism, which is exactly what it is in this case. When most
             | people say "racist" they don't mean "bias" or "systemic
             | racism", but the overt kind.
             | 
             | I think there should be a difference in the perception of
             | the two kinds, even though we should improve in both cases.
             | 
             | I'll also add that when people responsible don't take any
             | steps to correct systemic racism, it should be considered
             | the overt kind.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _when people responsible don 't take any steps to
               | correct systemic racism, it should be considered the
               | overt kind_
               | 
               | The problem with the state of our debate is people
               | smeared a word used for overt, intentional racism across
               | all manner of unintentional behaviour. That not only
               | reasonably infuriated folks. It also gave cover for the
               | original kind of racism to duck under. (A similar thing
               | has happened to the term violence.)
        
             | InCityDreams wrote:
             | >...obviously being sarcastic and trying to "stir the pot".
             | 
             | Is that the one that called the kettle 'black'?
        
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       (page generated 2023-01-12 23:01 UTC)