[HN Gopher] Apple wins bid to pause Apple Watch ban at US appeal...
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Apple wins bid to pause Apple Watch ban at US appeals court
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 105 points
Date : 2023-12-27 16:43 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| Doches wrote:
| Watching this unfold I was really hoping that the long-term
| solution here would be Apple moving (or at least announcing a
| move) Watch assembly to the US, if only to get around the
| _import_ ban. I realize that would take...rather a long time to
| set up, but it would have been one hell of a win (for the US, not
| so much for Apple).
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| That still could be underway?
| bdcravens wrote:
| Licensing the technology or acquiring the company would
| probably be less expensive and take less time.
| kemayo wrote:
| Masimo has a market capitalization of a bit over $6 billion,
| so Apple presumably has a very long way to go before
| acquiring them is cheaper than continuing the lawsuit. Apple
| could certainly do a hostile takeover out of their cash-on-
| hand if they wanted to, though -- it'd take about 10% of what
| they have available.
|
| I've not seem anyone manage to turn up what sort of terms
| Masimo would want to license their patent. It's certainly
| _possible_ that what they want is unreasonable, particularly
| since they seem to be launching their own smartwatch. Of
| course, Apple famously loves its high margins on products,
| and it might be fighting here to keep a 30% profit on the
| Watch rather than 28%.
| Someone wrote:
| > Masimo has a market capitalization of a bit over $6
| billion, so Apple presumably has a very long way to go
| before acquiring them is cheaper than continuing the
| lawsuit
|
| > I've not seem anyone manage to turn up what sort of terms
| Masimo would want to license their patent. It's certainly
| possible that what they want is unreasonable
|
| FTA: _"In its earlier suit, which ended with a deadlocked
| jury, Masimo wanted Apple to pay more than $3 billion in
| damage"_
|
| So, they're claiming that patent is worth half the company.
| I guess that's, at least, quite a high initial offer.
| bdcravens wrote:
| It sounds to me like Apple is probably just stalling to
| negotiate that number down.
| krab wrote:
| No, they claim their company would be worth 1/2 more had
| Apple not infringed their patent. Or probably they're
| asking for something extra to compensate for the fact
| they have to sue. Anyway not directly related to current
| market cap.
| alberth wrote:
| That's presumably a precedent Apple doesn't want to set.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Paying for what doesn't belong to them? I'm not qualified
| to analyze the patent claims, but assuming it's correct as
| determined, this hardly seems like a situation where Apple
| is being bullied and needs to stand on principle.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| Took longer than I expected
| flutas wrote:
| Honestly, all this tells me is no matter what big tech wins.
|
| Have a great idea and patent it? Well who cares, they'll steal
| your tech and courts seemingly will let them. All comes down to
| who has the money for better lawyers.
| rand1239 wrote:
| If they make the tech accessible for millions of people and
| improve reality, how is that a bad thing? I am confused. Unless
| you are too much emotionally caught up in the word "steal" and
| bunch of sentences.
| galbar wrote:
| Stealing is morally bad, regardless of the good effects the
| act of stealing may have.
| rand1239 wrote:
| > morally bad,
|
| Apart from those words, is there anything else you think is
| of concern compared to the progress made by humanity by
| making the tech available to millions of people?
| angus-prune wrote:
| The debate isn't about whether the technology should be
| available to millions but whether (and how much) apple
| should have to pay for the technology.
|
| Either Apple are guilty or being stingy, or Massimo are
| guilty of being greedy. Either could be responsible for
| the conflict.
| bloppe wrote:
| Patents are a pragmatic contract between inventors and
| society:
|
| - In order to be granted a patent, inventors must publish
| detailed descriptions of their inventions, including step-by-
| step instructions on how to re-create them. The inventions
| become _public knowledge_.
|
| - In exchange for publishing the details of their inventions,
| society grants a _temporary_ exclusive right to market the
| technology.
|
| Without this system, the only way to safeguard a
| technological advantage would be to keep it secret. Inventors
| would be incentivized to maintain maximum secrecy for all new
| inventions. That would be bad for society, and inconvenient
| for inventors.
|
| The patent system is an acknowledgement of this reality. Even
| though it seems a bit ridiculous, we allow people to claim
| _temporary_ "ownership" of their new ideas, in order to
| incentivize the publishing of research, which eventually
| enters the public domain.
|
| Clearly, there's some room for argument on the details of
| this specific case, but assuming the patent is legitimate,
| and that Apple infringed on it, then it would be bad for the
| long-term progress of science for us to let them get away
| with it.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Without this system, the only way to safeguard a
| technological advantage would be to keep it secret.
| Inventors would be incentivized to maintain maximum secrecy
| for all new inventions. That would be bad for society, and
| inconvenient for inventors.
|
| And in today's world where reversing a product is pretty
| much a guarantee if the product is something anyone wants,
| the secret won't be kept for too long. (shhh, everyone's
| secret sauce is pretty much thousand island) Once the
| secret is out, anyone that wants to will copy it and now
| there's no protection.
| bloppe wrote:
| Ya, clearly patents are a good deal for inventors. I just
| think a lot of people fail to realize that it's also a
| good deal for society.
|
| Without patents, who knows how many ideas would be stuck
| in the heads of individual people, reluctant not only to
| try to bring them to market, but to even discuss them
| with anybody. Why would anybody want to become an
| inventor, if there were so little upside?
| FpUser wrote:
| It is becoming harder and harder for an individual to
| file for and protect the patent due to costs involved.
| dylan604 wrote:
| to be fair, it's harder and harder to come up with an
| idea _first_. there 's a lot of patents that have to be
| researched to see if your idea is first or just a
| first^Nth person to have the idea. that's a definite
| specialty skill and even then they're not perfect
| delfinom wrote:
| The problem is many patents are incomplete, they don't
| actually contain step by step recreation instructions and
| it's especially problematic in the sciences fields.
|
| The other issue is there are patents on ideas that aren't
| novel. There was some tightening of the rules such as the
| Alice software ruling but still lots of holes.
|
| Case in point personally, our competitor patented the
| "idea" of putting a flexible PCB in a type of product.
| That's how bullshit it was and that was granted in 2020.
| Luckily we have prior art of a flexible PCB in a product of
| ours from 17years ago if they decide to ever start shit.
| briffle wrote:
| I bet there are lots of small time inventors that lack the
| capital to setup a worldwide manufacturing and distribution
| infrastructure right off the bat that may disagree with you.
| giantrobot wrote:
| These threads keep seeing the use of the word "steal" without
| any concrete evidence of actual IP theft. Violating a poorly
| conceived patent (measuring SOX with three or more lights on a
| watch) is not anything at all like industrial espionage.
| thejazzman wrote:
| espionage != stealing
|
| the existence of a patent that another company copied is by
| definition stealing. until further litigation occurs and
| changes this decision, it is a fact Apple stole this
| technology
|
| why they can't ever show a little humility and pay up in
| royalties is just ridiculous. remember, they didn't even want
| to pay artists for the music they gave away when launching
| Apple Music until a Very Big Deal named Taylor Swift told
| them to GTFO.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > the existence of a patent that another company copied is
| by definition stealing
|
| It literally and figuratively is not.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| Having actually read the patent, as well as the sordid
| history behind Apple's dealings with Masimo, I'm not sure how
| someone could reasonably assert the patent was poorly
| conceived, or how they could poorly summarize the patent or
| the situation in the way you did.
|
| Nevertheless, the patent was granted, and naked assertions
| and poor summarizations are not convincing enough to conclude
| that it should not have been. The contents of that patent,
| for anyone who is interested in examining it, make this seem
| like a pretty cut and dry case of patent infringement.
| gruez wrote:
| >make this seem like a pretty cut and dry case of patent
| infringement.
|
| ...assuming the patent is valid, which apple disputes.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| There are a greater number who dispute that the earth is
| roundish. Their dispute, while not imaginary, doesn't
| mean they're right. In this case, the patent is visible
| for all to see its apparent validity, and it was judged
| valid by people who judge such things, so we can indeed
| assume the patent is valid, instead of the opposite,
| until equal or greater evidence surfaces to the contrary.
| kemayo wrote:
| Pausing the ban during appeals seems generally reasonable. After
| all, the _point_ of there being an appeal is that the case isn 't
| actually settled yet, so leaving the status quo in place until it
| is seems less-harmful overall. Possibly with some kind of
| clawback requirement for if the appeal fails.
|
| Apple's argument was that it was being irreparably harmed by
| having to take the Watch off the market. Not for lost sales,
| which are reparable by handing money to Apple, but for the
| reputation / goodwill cost of consumers being exposed to the
| turmoil. (There's established case law that this does count as
| irreparable, so the main question would be whether they're really
| being harmed in that way.)
| mratsim wrote:
| If there is a ban for consumer safety reasons, say in food,
| health, agriculture, transport, is it reasonable to pause a
| ban?
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| But this is a ban due to alleged patent infringement (or
| alleged abuse of the patent system, depending on one's
| opinion of Apple) - comparing this to a public harm/public-
| benefit scenario is a distraction.
| gambiting wrote:
| And to add to that - there's no harm in allowing the sale
| of these devices to continue, because if the court upholds
| the ruling then Apple could always be sued for damages
| during that time(and there is no risk that Apple would not
| be able to pay it).
| beeboobaa wrote:
| The risk is that consumers will be shafted by buying a
| product today that apple refuses to support later because
| they weren't actually allowed to sell it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _that apple refuses to support later because they weren
| 't actually allowed to sell it_
|
| This is a separate--and reparable--set of harms.
| TillE wrote:
| That's not a risk, because there's zero chance that Apple
| just abandons their latest Watches.
|
| The worst possible outcome for customers is that Apple
| pushes a software update to disable the feature, but it's
| a fairly useless feature for most people.
| kemayo wrote:
| We're not talking about consumer safety reasons here, and I
| was talking about a default posture not an absolute rule. The
| _reason_ a judge has to approve pausing the ban is to work
| out whether it should happen in that particular case.
| asylteltine wrote:
| This isn't that
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > After all, the point of there being an appeal is that the
| case isn't actually settled yet
|
| Appeals aren't retrials, though.
| kemayo wrote:
| To get to a retrial you'd need the case (or a part of it)
| thrown out, in which case the ban should _definitely_ be
| invalidated until the new trial happens.
|
| Generally an appeal like this is just a short pause while
| they work out whether there's more that needs to be done in
| the case, and so it hurts less to stop the ban for a few days
| while that's happening. Then if it actually goes up to an
| appeals court for more expensive lawyer-work the issue would
| indeed still be undecided and the pause should continue. For
| a company that's not a behemoth like Apple you could
| certainly imagine a poorly-decided import ban causing them to
| run out of money to fight it, after all.
| dkrich wrote:
| > Then if it actually goes up to an appeals court for more
| expensive lawyer-work the issue would indeed still be
| undecided and the pause should continue.
|
| Not sure I understand this logic. There are basically two
| outcomes- either customs decides it is okay to be imported
| and the ban is lifted or it decides it should be upheld and
| the ban remains. If it were to be appealed to a higher
| court and then have the ban reinstated as you say, why
| would it make sense to pause the ban and then reinstate it
| when it goes to appeals since it's already in place? Seems
| it should be upheld until a higher authority says it no
| longer needs to be upheld. I'm not sure I understand why
| third parties are still allowed to violate a ruling,
| either.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| The court can decide it should be upheld but also
| simultaneously decide the ban was an overreach and order
| some different type of remediation.
|
| i.e. There's more then 2 possible scenarios.
| kemayo wrote:
| Apple's saying that the import ban will hurt them in ways
| that can't be fixed, and so it makes sense to stay it
| until their appeal decides what's going to happen. It's
| why this stay is only for ~2 weeks, because that's all
| they think is needed to get to a more-permanent decision
| from the appeals court.
|
| The idea is that harms that can't be fixed (by e.g.
| ordering someone to pay money) should be avoided until
| the system has settled on a definite answer.
|
| > I'm not sure I understand why third parties are still
| allowed to violate a ruling, either.
|
| The ruling is just blocking imports, not sales. I don't
| think that Apple is actually required to freeze its own
| sales, per se, but they're very just-in-time for stock so
| it was an effective ban for them unless they wanted to
| stockpile.
|
| Third parties are thus able to sell through whatever
| stock they have.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _Pausing the ban during appeals seems generally reasonable.
| After all, the point of there being an appeal is that the case
| isn 't actually settled yet, so leaving the status quo in place
| until it is seems less-harmful overall. Possibly with some kind
| of clawback requirement for if the appeal fails._
|
| How many levels of appeal should this apply to?
| ethanbond wrote:
| As many as you are entitled to (which is not infinite)
| abduhl wrote:
| Recall that Apple is appealing the decision of an agency, not
| a court. Staying an agency's decision until an actual court
| can review the agency's decision makes sense. An analogy:
| migrants seeking asylum in the USA should be permitted to
| remain in the USA until their appeals process is completed
| even after an immigration judge decides not to grant the
| asylum-seeker asylum.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Interesting example. There are plenty of other examples
| that go the other way, for example if someone is found
| guilty of a crime but is appealing it. The default rule is
| that you are imprisoned during appeal. This is of concern
| to Trump supporters right now, since the precedent is so
| strong that it's not clear that being a top candidate for
| POTUS may not be enough to warrant an exception.
| abduhl wrote:
| Guilty of a crime implies an actual judicial proceeding,
| not an administrative proceeding. Administrative
| proceedings occur under the powers of the executive
| branch alone.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| That's a terrible example. It onky holds true for actions
| that are irrevensible or interfere with the legal process.
|
| Capital punsihment is also not administered untill appeals
| are finished.
|
| Obviously you can't attend a court hearing if you have
| already been killed or deported.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _Obviously you can 't attend a court hearing if you
| have already been killed or deported._
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if there were a reversion to the
| "remain in Mexico" policy in the coming months. This
| flipped the presumption on whether the applicant was
| going to prevail on the merits, presumably because such a
| small percentage do ultimately qualify. There is a
| growing sentiment, including in bright blue cities, that
| the current system, which presumes applicants will
| qualify for asylum, is not tenable.
| mminer237 wrote:
| There are only two levels of appeal in normal federal court,
| and the second (SCOTUS) doesn't take many cases.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I'm aware of the levels of review (IAAL), but the point is
| that these two levels of appeal could completely moot the
| situation because of the time delay involved.
| dharmab wrote:
| Howso? If the plaintif wins they can be compensated by
| their back royalties for all the watches Apple already
| sold.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Because it drastically shifts the bargaining power of the
| parties. The whole point of injunctions (which is what
| the ITC is able to order) is that they are prospective,
| not retrospective. If injunctions can be put on hold
| until _all_ appeals are exhausted, as suggested above,
| that has a huge effect on the timeline on which this all
| plays out. Appeals take significant time, and Apple 's
| refresh cycle is annual.
|
| Also, some plaintiff's might have a hard time paying for
| all of the appeals -- if a large defendant can simply
| wait them out, without regard to wins in courts of first
| impression, that is a boon for deep-pocketed companies.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| Apple's only concern is to slow things down until they release
| the newer device which hopefully will have a patent workaround
| granzymes wrote:
| And they will likely succeed. In addition to this appeal to the
| Federal Circuit, which has the potential to pause the import
| ban for over a year if the stay is extended, Apple is also
| submitting a proposed software redesign to U.S. Customs and
| Border Protection.
|
| U.S. Customs will decide on January 12th whether the redesign
| is sufficient, and if it is sufficient Apple can continue its
| imports. Maismo would then need to head back to the ITC to
| argue that the software redesign still infringes their patents.
| That could easily take another year.
|
| If Apple succeeds in either way, they will be able to draw out
| the litigation long enough for a full hardware redesign in the
| Apple Watch 10.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"If Apple succeeds in either way, they will be able to draw
| out the litigation long enough for a full hardware redesign
| in the Apple Watch 10."
|
| Can they still be sued for the damages caused even if they
| come up with total redesign?
| mrkstu wrote:
| Yes, for any of the previous infringing watches.
| granzymes wrote:
| Yes, but not at the ITC, which doesn't have the power to
| award monetary damages. Masimo has sued Apple for unjust
| enrichment from trade secret theft already and sought
| damages, but the jury deadlocked 6-1 in favor of Apple.
| There's a retrial scheduled for next October and Masimo
| could add patent damage claims to that case.
|
| The likely reason Masimo made the strategic choice to sue
| for for unjust enrichment instead of damages is that
| damages are limited to the license fees Apple would have
| paid in the alternative world where they sought a license.
| That's a relatively small amount of money compared to what
| Masimo is no doubt hoping to extract by blocking Apple
| Watch imports.
|
| By the way, a court would not have enjoined Apple from
| importing or selling the Apple Watch. Masimo has a very
| small domestic consumer-facing industry putting their
| patents into practice and they they already license their
| patents to others, demonstrating that they could do so here
| as well. The ITC was the only place they were likley to get
| that remedy.
| SpaceManNabs wrote:
| So apple can play appeal games to keep the watch sales going
| and then just redesign a new watch? and if the appeals
| determine apple was actually in the wrong, they don't have to
| pay anything?
|
| Kinda absurd lol. The US court system is so biased towards rich
| transgressors lmao.
|
| Well, tbf to apple, no domestic court has ruled on this patent.
| Just domestic agencies and the ITC right?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if the appeals determine apple was actually in the wrong,
| they don 't have to pay anything?_
|
| No, then there are money damages.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > The US court system is so biased towards rich transgressors
| lmao.
|
| Masimo is a multi-billion dollar company themselves. They may
| not be Apple-big, but they are definitely in the category of
| 'rich' for this discussion.
| conjecTech wrote:
| Isn't there treble(3x) damages for knowingly selling something
| that violates others' IP? This seems like a risky gambit by
| Apple. I'm not sure what their endgame is, but having those
| potential damages stack up in the likely scenario the patent
| violations get upheld seems like they would be a big deterrent to
| having Masimo come to the table and negotiate.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It isn't necessarily _knowingly_ if you're still in the appeals
| process.
| conjecTech wrote:
| I'm speaking colloquially. I believe it covers exactly this
| situation.
| granzymes wrote:
| The ITC doesn't have the power to award monetary damages to
| Masimo for Apple's alleged infringement. For that, you need to
| go to court. The ITC is a specialized forum for trade disputes.
|
| Masimo actually did sue Apple in Federal court for damages, but
| the judge declared a mistrial after the jury deadlocked 6-1 in
| favor of Apple.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > Maismo actually did sue Apple in Federal court for damages,
| but the judge declared a mistrial after the jury deadlocked
| 6-1 in favor of Apple.
|
| To be clear, the mistrial was around "theft of trade
| secrets", and had nothing to do with the alleged patent
| infringement.
| granzymes wrote:
| The jury heard testimony related to patent infringement.
| It's true that Masimo chose to seek an award for unjust
| enrichment from trade secret theft instead of damages
| related to the patents themselves, but that was a strategic
| choice on their part. They could have requested damages in
| that same case.
| mrkstu wrote:
| But it does speak to their confidence, or lack thereof,
| in their ability to defend the patent in question.
| kcplate wrote:
| Couldn't same confidence could be said for Apple's
| actions? Why continue to GTM with relatively minor
| feature (it's not 2020 anymore where everyone was
| worrying about blood oxygen due to covid) that could be
| easily disabled by software? My sense is that Apple is
| really confident that they are not infringing on that
| patent.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Yes, though it's not a bright-line test for what constitutes
| 'knowing' infringement. It can be less strict than the phrase
| suggests -- if you had reason to know of the patent, even if
| you had never looked at it yourself, or it can be more strict
| -- if you infringed a patent you were aware of, but you had
| received three opinion letters from top law firms saying that
| your product didn't infringe.
|
| I've heard some companies say that they should never put in
| writing that they're aware of anyone else's IP, to mitigate the
| risk of treble damages.
| fl0ki wrote:
| > I've heard some companies say that they should never put in
| writing that they're aware of anyone else's IP, to mitigate
| the risk of treble damages.
|
| I've been instructed by a big company to take all possible
| notes on my own ideas and experiments, and none at all on
| what information I found elsewhere.
|
| I hear the opposite is true in trading, where to avoid
| insider trading allegations, you need notes on what
| publically available information you acted on, even just as
| "parallel construction" of the trades you were going to make
| based on insider information.
|
| It's really interesting the kind of world you get when legal
| precedent is the only unstoppable force.
| albntomat0 wrote:
| Is there a concrete explanation of what Masimo's actual
| innovation was in their patents?
|
| They were posted in a previous thread, and the way they were
| written made it unclear what was actually covered. Is Apple
| allegedly infringing on the idea of putting a blood oxygen sensor
| in a watch, a technical innovation in how to do so effectively,
| or something else entirely?
| explaininjs wrote:
| It's regarding the arrangement of LED's and sensors in the
| watch, along with the signal processing needed to get
| reasonable data out of them.
|
| My impression of the whole debacle is that Masimo hired up a
| bunch of smart people, they invented this tech while being paid
| next-to-nothing by Masimo (as Masimo didn't have the product
| development chops to actually bring anything to market), Apple
| saw that the tech was good and just neeeed a product/marketing
| team, Apple tried to acquire Masimo, their CEO tried to play
| hard to get, so Apple "stole" (offered compensation
| commensurate to their technical prowess) all the engineers who
| actually made the thing and just built it in house from
| "scratch".
|
| It's a tricky case to be sure. But I'm all for the outcome
| where consumers get cool tech and the people who actually made
| it (notably not the Masimo CEO) get fair compensation for their
| work.
|
| The aspect a lot of people here gloss over is that the patent
| that Masimo owns wasn't actually developed by anyone currently
| at Masimo. Apple "owns" all the people, but Masimo "owns" their
| accomplishments. It's weird.
| matwood wrote:
| To add some anecdata to your story, I looked up a job on
| Masimo's site when this story first came out. $190k for a
| senior algo/signal processing programmer - PhD preferred - in
| CA. Masimo had no hope when big-tech turned their focus
| towards these types of programmers.
| delecti wrote:
| Patent law is convoluted sometimes, but that seems like a
| somewhat charitable description of pretty blatant patent
| infringement.
| angus-prune wrote:
| The impression I got was that Massimo was paying fairly for
| the development team of a _medical_ product.
|
| As soon as the technology had a consumer application, the
| market value of the expertise changed drastically.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > My impression of the whole debacle is that Masimo hired up
| a bunch of smart people, they invented this tech while being
| paid next-to-nothing by Masimo (as Masimo didn't have the
| product development chops to actually bring anything to
| market)
|
| Your impression that Masimo "doesn't have product development
| chops to bring anything to market" is ... odd, considering
| Masimo is a nearly 40 year old company which has devices in
| most of the hospitals I see as a paramedic bringing patients
| in, and $2B a year in revenue.
|
| > Apple tried to acquire Masimo, their CEO tried to play hard
| to get
|
| Masimo stated in court - _and Apple never challenged it_ -
| that their discussions were around partnership and licensing
| and tech. I have no idea where your claim that Masimo is just
| hurt /offended that they weren't "acquired by Apple". I can't
| even imagine why Masimo would be an acquisition target for
| Apple - there's an entire world of difference between
| personal healthcare and the world of ICUs, ORs and ERs that
| Masimo mostly plays in.
|
| Their "Root" devices are actually some of the nicer ones I've
| used in healthcare -
| https://www.masimo.com/products/continuous/root/
|
| There's definitely an undercurrent in a lot of these threads
| to paint Apple as being attacked by a patent troll.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| >But I'm all for the outcome where consumers get cool tech
| and the people who actually made it (notably not the Masimo
| CEO) get fair compensation for their work.
|
| So Apple and their shareholders should make nothing on this
| either in a completely fair outcome?
| dannyw wrote:
| They should be required to license it, instead of poaching
| all the engineers to recreate something patented.
| rtsil wrote:
| The engineers didn't invent the tech in their garage on their
| own, though. And I don't know if your narrative reflects the
| reality, but if it is, "creating" the same product for a
| different company even when you know that the product is
| patent-protected is ethically questionable. My position would
| be different if they launched a start-up based on the tech.
| upon_drumhead wrote:
| US-10192502-B2 Seems to cover using a lookup table to control
| the amount of light a liquid crystal on silicon device emits
| per pixel.
|
| US-10945648-B2 seems to cover the heart of the issue. It
| specifically calls out
|
| > four photodiodes configured to receive light emitted by the
| LEDs, the four photodiodes being arranged to capture light at
| different quadrants of tissue of a user;
|
| Which is what I believe Apple was going to change via software
| disabling one.
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/18/apple-watch-import-ban-...
|
| Honestly it seems stretching to say the first one is patentable
| imho and the second one is easily changed for future hardware
| versions, which is why I presume Apple isn't in licensing
| talks.
| xuhu wrote:
| Would it be far fetched to hope that Apple could introduce a
| jailbreak mechanism in the Apple Watch for the purpose of
| providing users the option to enable and use all photodiodes
| for the pulse oximeter ?
| fl0ki wrote:
| It might be simpler than that. Like many other watch and
| phone features, it might just depend on the user's region.
| Hopefully only in software, but there's also precedent for
| regional hardware differences.
| JCharante wrote:
| That was fast
| hedora wrote:
| Note that no court has ruled the Masimo patent is valid. They ran
| this through an expedited legal procedure that bypasses patent
| review.
|
| In all likelihood, the patent will eventually be tossed out, but
| that process takes a year or two.
| justahuman74 wrote:
| I'd presumed that patents are presumed valid unless invalidated
| (which I think is a problem in itself)
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| What? If you presume that a patent is invalid, then what is
| the patent office for?
|
| You pay them to make sure the patent in valid before granting
| it. Why would one part of the government always preaume that
| the other part of the government is wrong?
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Isn't this backwards? They don't validate a patent but assume
| it is until it is invalidated.
| hedora wrote:
| That's the beauty of this process from a patent troll
| perspective. It is expedited, and therefore can't be blocked
| by having a proper review that could invalidate the patent.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > That's the beauty of this process from a patent troll
| perspective
|
| I know you didn't draw the connection explicitly, but I
| just wanted to point out that in this particular case,
| Masimo isn't a patent troll - they're a company that sells
| actual devices - https://www.masimopersonalhealth.com and
| is listed on the NASDAQ with market cap of $6 billion.
| mergejoin wrote:
| Within the healthcare sector, Masimo is well-known to use
| very aggressive legal procedures against their
| competitors.
| gnicholas wrote:
| IIRC the ITC can rule that patents are invalid (or not
| infringed). ITC trials are more expedited than patent trials in
| District Courts, and an appeals court would also do a deeper
| dive. But that doesn't mean that the ITC's determination of
| infringement doesn't indicate that the ITC also found them to
| be valid. It's also possible that Apple didn't raise this
| argument at the ITC trial, but that would be very unlikely
| (it's one of the most obvious arguments to make when being sued
| for patent infringement).
| thadk wrote:
| Is it possible that Apple is fighting so hard on this because
| the Masimo patent also covers applications in blood glucose
| which Apple has sunken nearly a decade of intense fairly
| independent R&D into at this point?
| matwood wrote:
| I'll add that many were already invalidated as part of the
| ongoing legal battle. Apple was also not found to be infringing
| on others. There are only a few left in question at this point.
| Given the direction it has gone so far, Apple has a pretty good
| chance of being found to not infringe on any of them.
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