Apple appeals US ban on Apple Watch
theverge.com
theverge.com
Why should good faith be extended to these thieves who are acting entitled to this technology even now and show no remorse or contrition? If they worked with Masimo they could develop an accurate FDA approved health sensor, but they want to sell their customers a second rate product that they stole and shoddily copied on the cheap.
I’ve yet to hear anyone even attempt to defend their behavior with a cogent argument.
"Apple thinks the patent is invalid" doesn't seem plausible to you? Masimo's lawsuit against Apple earlier this year was declared a mistrial, which doesn't rule out Apple as being innocent, but also suggests that the facts are not clearly favoring Masimo as you might think.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-declares-mistrial-app...
It is more than 10 years since this started , patent office is slow but not that slow .
Apple may believe they didn’t infringe masimo’s tech and theirs is novel enough, I doubt they have made indication that they believe it is invalid.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/analyzing-itcs-i...
"Apple countered that it did not infringe the asserted claims of Masimo's patents and attempted to distinguish the technology underlying its pulse-oximetry technology. Apple also argued that Masimo's asserted patent claims were invalid as obvious over the prior art."
> There are established processes to invalidate a patent ?
Is there? IANAL, but I thought the standard procedure was to make your product and then wait for the patent holder to sue. That has the advantage that you get to bring your product to market faster, and don't have to wait years for the inevitable lawsuits to settle.
> "Apple countered that it did not infringe the asserted claims of Masimo's patents and attempted to distinguish the technology underlying its pulse-oximetry technology. Apple also argued that Masimo's asserted patent claims were invalid as obvious over the prior art."
It did. And then the court ruled that there was sufficient merit to Masimo's claims. Hence the court ruling, and action we are seeing today. Apple's appeal will / should have to show that the court erred in that decision, with more than "we reiterate our previous claims" (a la "we strenuously object" in *A Few Good Men).
The mistrial had nothing to do with the patents in play here (which in fact the court had preliminarily ruled in favor of Masimo's assertion that Apple violated its patent rights).
This trial, that was a mistrial, was over Masimo's allegation of "theft of trade secrets", in that Apple had multiple meetings with Masimo over its technology and learning all about it, then hired the people running those meetings from Masimo to Apple. Masimo alleges that information was shared in furtherance of a licensing deal or agreement, but that as soon as Apple knew what/who it needed, it abandoned them, and since it has not attempted to enter into any discussion with Masimo since, that this was its plan all along, and it never entered those discussions in good faith.
The mistrial was a result of lack of unanimity that Masimo demonstrated the theft of trade secrets - there was no patent component to this trial.
I doubt Masimo has patents on the only possible ways to measure Blood oxygen.
Most of them have the sensor and emitter on opposing sides of an earlobe, or a finger. So maybe that’s the unique part?
It seems to be a combination of describing an arrangement of sensors, strapping those sensors onto someone, and having the strapped-thing be a touchscreen device with wireless comms.
As a layperson it does sound like one of those patents which we like to make fun of -- the "X but with a computer" ones that're conceptually incredibly obvious. That said, I don't know if the sensor arrangement they describe is actually a novel thing that wasn't already out-of-patent elsewhere.
Yup. When I think of Apple's engineering and design prowess, the first two phrases that come to mind are definitely "second rate" and "shoddily copied".
Masimo isn't exactly a patent troll. They've been around for decades making medical devices that are in almost every hospital. And as a healthcare provider, the devices they make are actually some of the nicer ones in that segment.
The problem with your argument is it presupposes that Apple is this helpless company just trying to make our lives better. It completely ignores that Apple had dozens of meetings with Masimo, feigning interest in a partnership or agreement, getting into the weeds of the technology, and as soon as it had learned enough, it bailed out of that agreement, hired the people involved and started making things.
I have no particular horse in the game (indeed I own an Apple Watch, though I am a paramedic - but not one who uses Masimo devices in my ambulance, but use them when getting a patient to hospital), but acting like Masimo is some PE-backed patent troll is very inaccurate. It has put devices on the market that have been absolutely genuine advances in the field of non-invasive monitoring.
If this happened as you described then Masimo’s leadership would be at fault for not adequately protecting its IP until a deal was on the table.
It seems that Apple deceived Masimo that they are interested in collaborating, and then proceeded to poach Masimo's technical people to basically steal their technology.
Could they have spoken to Masimo, determined that their asking price for the technology is unreasonable, the patents are not very defensible, Apple could develop it internally for much cheaper, and finally decide to also pay Masimo's employees more to increase development speed?
While some patents were found to have been infringed, that is different than IP theft even if the same people are involved.
It’s a poor extrapolation or idea anyway. Patents are public, and no sane entity would hire someone to reimplement a patent without a license.
More likely, they thought they were far enough from the patents in their new implementation and either did not know of the specific patents (were the same employees named on those patents?) or had a different reading of the invention described.
Brain transfers do not suffice to make the case.
Hiring employees away to work on the same field of technology isn’t illegal by any means (and is explicitly not allowed to be illegal in California’s non compete rules).
Your comment said they hired them to replicate patented technology being illegal. It is not illegal, unless IP theft is involved.
But there’s been no evidence or even accusations towards that by the parties involved. That’s why the case has been purely in patent law and not corporate theft.
That they were found to have infringed the patents doesn’t have enough information to extrapolate legality of the hiring or work they did. Otherwise every other area of patent dispute like modems and design patents would be full of IP theft rulings too as folks move around.
https://medium.com/42hire-don-t-panic-just-hire/stop-calling...
When this happens, it’s because workers are winning. Not just those with a new better-paying job, but everyone in the sector that benefits from rising wages.
Taking the interview at face value, those employees were already in the 98 percentile and Apple still doubled their wages.
Companies and owners sure do get upset when it’s the workers that take advantage of “at-will”.
No I’m not. I’ve never once commented on “ownership”
I just said Apple have deeper pockets so it’s not exactly a fair fight in response to your comment that Masimo should have offered to pay them more.
> If the company whose workers were hired away didn’t want that to happen, they should have paid them more or offered better benefits.
It’s just like when legal threats are made against smaller companies or individuals. Sure, those smaller entities could in theory fight their case. But in practice they usually cannot afford to go head to head with Apple and co, so instead cave to whatever the big corp demands are.
It’s one thing to message someone on LinkedIn. It’s something else to enter into a competitors place of business and make the same offers.
What if the deer did away with kings and made the lands their own?
While pretty aggressive, is it actually wrong to walk up to a worker and offer them a job?
It's about the company, Apple, being where it is not supposed to be, for its own gains.
If Apple had said "Can we come to your offices and have a bunch of meetings with your employees to see which we might be interested in hiring?" do you think that Masimo would have indulged that?
Now Apple came and said "We're really interested in a partnership and agreement and licensing with you and want to understand the tech of this space better". And then said "Actually, thanks for sharing all this, but we never really intended to do anything other than mild corporate espionage, and this was just the cover story."
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/masimo...
Masimo’s CEO claimed that they offered settling but that Apple didn’t even respond to that offer.
"The prosecutor offered you a plea deal, and you didn't entertain it at all. You must be guilty."
It may surprise you to learn that it's totally common to have patent settlement agreements where you retain your right to appeal, and only owe money if the appeal fails.
So they can in fact likely both get things back on the shelves, and still appeal.
It's basically "take this arrangement of sensors and put it on a smartwatch". So a lot of my opinion of it is going to rest on whether the arrangement of sensors is actually novel, or whether this is Masimo taking a long-existing setup and saying "but with a computer!" like all the most-mockable obvious patents.
Having tested a bunch of of fingertip SpO2 sensors for $reasons, i will say they are the real deal.
In particular, the most important thing they have accomplished (though i don't think apple uses it) is that they have fingertip SpO2 meters that work ~fine during exercise.
Most fingertip SpO2 meters cannot handle movement at all, or a very small amount (apple's watch requires you remain completely still). Those that claim to work give mostly nonsense results.
Meanwhile, Masimo has fingertip meters that work fine while, say, biking, for example.
Staring at the particular patent, it looks like patent that covers a specific arrangement of sensors and processors, which i can believe is important to make something like a watch work properly.
You can limit patent holders options by bringing supply chain here
Just another incentive
Hey and we wont have to play geopolitical football with random conflicts around the world just so Taiwan feels safe, for now. We could ignore them all and let some other countries pick up the slack if anybody actually cares to misappropriate their resources like we do.
All the chips are in our hands and its only a net benefit for us
Correct. Companies want to offshore their stuff then want protection from the US gov paid for via us citizens.
>You can limit patent holders options by bringing supply chain here
Sure, you might get USITC off your back if manufacturing was domestic, but surely there are other agencies tasked with patent enforcement once you're onshore?
No, a court absolutely can issue a permanent injunction on further sales as well as damages for past behavior, and defying such a court order (as well as being the basis for further civil litigation by the offended private party) absolutely can be the basis of civil and or criminal contempt actions by the originating court and compulsory enforcement actions related to that by law enforcement (US Marshals, in the case of a federal court order.)
yes it a judge does that it moves into the existing process for any order or collections
Patents at this point seem to be more about seeing which company’s lawyers can create the broadest-worded patents possible than about any sort of encouragement of innovation. Apple is also guilty of this, so I get that it’s satisfying to see them on the receiving end, but in the end the whole system is clearly broken.
https://www.masimopersonalhealth.com/products/masimo-w1
Now that I know the SPO2 monitor on my Apple Watch is shit. I am looking for something more accurate.
I am a big Apple fanboy and always thought I could trust Apple’s products but I am beginning to doubt that with this case.
They could’ve easily licensed Masimo’s tech and provided their customers better technology.
lmaoo what a joke
It's not an amount of harm that's actually significant to Apple, I'm sure, but it is irreparable.
The problem is that the tone of that claim implies the kind of harm that is significant while being just vague enough to also be covered under your interpretation should they get challenged on that statement.
Thus I would argue that Apple are still being disingenuous even if they are technically correct.
You are claiming that from a legal stand point Apple are correct. Which is also true.
My point is that both arguments are correct. One doesn't contradict the other.
You touched a little on this when you said there's no room to play nicely in court. And I agree with that. That's exactly why statements like that are used in legal claims. But what you're failing to empathise with is why they're used. It's because it is "technically correct" to the extreme edge of reality. And that's why the GP scoffed.
Or to put it another way: the alternative would be Apple saying "yeah we were a little underhanded and this ban wouldn't affect the health of the company, but we'd like to appeal the ban regardless". That would also be technically correct but you're not going to win any legal arguments that way. So of course Apple are going to write the most dramatised version of facts that favour themselves.
The problem with being technically correct is that there are a multitude of ways one can say the same technically correct thing yet convey a completely different story.
So yes, you are right. But I can also totally see why some might scoff at the Apples statement when taken verbatim. Frankly, it is a bit of an absurd statement. If it were made in any other circumstance outside of a legal appeal, it would be a pretty absurd claim to make. Literally the only reason one can defend that comment is because it's a legal statement.
And hence why both parties in this thread are correct.
Legally, if later money damages suffice to make someone whole, it is not considered irreparable harm. By definition: "Irreparable harm is a legal term that refers to harm or injury that cannot be adequately compensated or remedied by any monetary award or damages that may be awarded later. "
Irreparable harm is like "they are going to physically destroy the i'm trying to save".
Not "we'll lose money".
The harm is only significant if it drags out for a significant period of time. Apple will probably just remove some functionality and keep selling.
I mean it’s a watch, and the timekeeping aspects aren’t patented (I don’t think). Calculator watches existed since the 80s so that’s ok…my friend had a game on his watch in the 80s so that’s ok..