Apple Must Stop Selling Watches with Blood Oxygen Feature
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
They are not the little guy. Their patents for the O2 sensor are also incredibly general.
Breaking the law isn't when the offended party is only children, grandmas and puppies instead of other corporations.
Next time they should try the legal way of doing business, like paying to license IP like everyone else. Stealing is bad m'kay.
It's not the people's fault they loose access to the tech if Apple hasn't paid the ones who invented it. Apple also has access to the tech, they need to pay for it, and not sell people tech they don't have rights over.
The ITC decision will not require Apple to remove the functionality from anyone's devices.
Doctors' work is also a net benefit to society, yet we still pay them handsomely because nobody works for free, nor do companies develop IP for free.
If Apple cared about the net benefit to society or at least its customers who buy their products, they should have just paid to license the apropriate IP. It's not like they're short on cash.
I’m not saying that happened here - but it might have. Most patents are dumb.
I bet my money every single company out there is abusing the patent system. Apple famously patented "slide to unlock" and B&O's own scroll wheel invention for their iPod.
Everyone can agree the patent system is broken in many ways and leads to the sorry state of today where if everyone is abusing it and you don't then you loose out so you have to abuse it too, to stay in the race. It's a tragedy of the commons.
See the comment they were replying to for why they said that. The size is exactly the point if they're being characterised by size.
Also curious as these appear to be dated in 2021 but the Apple Watch 6 with pulse oximeter came out in 2020. Unless there is something different about the "latest" watches.
But you can patent inventions that do exist but are crap. Many inventions are crap, and that's okay. If you have a bad invention, you still have an invention.
Edit: change of tone
It doesn't. It's not you vs Big HN. Stop talking like it. It's just some people with different opinions.
> It doesn't. It's not you vs Big HN. Stop talking like it. It's just some people with different opinions.
Did your parent (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39033027) change their comment? It doesn't currently say what you quoted, only:
> Maybe if they would read blood oxygen levels legally, using IP they legally licensed, it wouldn't be a problem.
I’m on Apple’s side on this. If it were a company other than Apple, I’d also be in that company’s side on this. Masimo isn’t a patent troll, but I don’t see how that $6B company can claim to own tech that’s been in wide use for several decades.
Because we aren't using 1970's tech anymore today. Pulse-ox tech improved a lot since then and that means more new patents. That's like saying "it blows my mind Audi's fuel stratified injection is locked up in patents because we've been driving cars since the 1910's".
>In 1995, Masimo introduced Signal Extraction Technology (SET) that could measure accurately during patient motion and low perfusion by separating the arterial signal from the venous and other signals.
>A noninvasive method that allows continuous measurement of the dyshemoglobins is the pulse CO-oximeter, which was built in 2005 by Masimo.
>In 2007, Masimo introduced the first measurement of the pleth variability index (PVI), which multiple clinical studies have shown provides a new method for automatic, noninvasive assessment of a patient's ability to respond to fluid administration.
This is a probably the least notable feature of the Apple Watch. If you live at a normal altitude and are healthy, your blood oxygen will be >95% all the time.
I recently bought one and this was one of the features that drew me to it. I wander if I can ask for my money back if they remove the feature?
There are also district court cases ongoing, but those will take longer and there are not yet any rumblings about whether they could affect existing devices. My guess is they would just require Apple to pay for the past infringement, not to remove the feature from already-sold devices.
Customers aren’t the ones who violated a patent, and yet they’re the ones who might get screwed. The burden should be on Apple to figure this out for their customers.
I could barely type that with a straight face. They'll never do that after being sued.
I don't know why they haven't just done the simple solution yet and are instead fighting this in court, continuing to lose sales, for a feature .1% of people will use?
I do agree that it is odd to have such a big fight over a feature that so few people use. But Apple's behavior is consistent with this notion — they don't want to pay Massimo much because people don't really care about the feature. Therefore Apple isn't willing to pay much of a license fee for it.
Of course, it's likely that if Apple had this tech in the clear, they would have promoted it much more, and made it more prominent to the users. They probably hesitate to market the feature that prominently because they don't want to end up with a huge patent verdict against them, on the grounds that it's an important part of their newer watches. They'd rather it look like "just another one of many features" on the watch, which would command a modest royalty.
On the other hand, it appears that Customs is not content with a software-only fix, based on the reporting here and previously. IIRC Apple had offered up a software fix, and seems to have been rebuffed. That's why they're now getting approval for a different device, which has the hardware removed.
It's one of the reason why I'm not buying Apple products, I don't want the manufacturer silently nerfing my purchased property without my consent and me having no control over it. With other manufactures updates are usually triggered manually, not "automagically".
> Apple has developed a software workaround to the ban that eliminates the function from its devices. Last week, the US Customs and Border Protection agency approved redesigned versions of the watches that didn’t have the oxygen reader.
Why would Customs need to approve a redesigned version that doesn't have the oxygen reader if this was a change in software only? It seems that the first sentence may not be directly related to the second. Yes, Apple can develop a software workaround to remove this feature from being accessible. This is obviously true. I believe they tried to do this in order to be able to import the already-produced devices despite the ban. But Customs might say that this wouldn't satisfy the ITC ban because the actual sensor, which is the patented item in question, is still included in the watch — even if the user can't access it in any way. This would explain why they then sought approval for a new device that does not have the sensor.
I was personally waiting for some of Withings (Nokia folk IIRC) offerings to get approved by the FDA for quite some time… last I checked they never did and I mostly use apple now.
* Apple Watches improve public health. Stepcounters, heart rate monitors, fall detection, etc etc. It's a tragedy that less of these were put out into the public, especially around Christmas/New Years.
* The Blood Oxygen technology has a much larger impact on the general public when it's in a widely distributed device like the Apple Watch. Access to the technology will be lower with Masimo.
* The quantified self is becoming more and more of a reality. The long term vision -- of having a better image of your health -- is something we should be sprinting towards. This is hurdle.
If we let Apple to continue doing this, it makes it harder for other companies to start selling the same kind of devices too, because they're at a disadvantage when they do follow the law.
Please post the randomized controlled trial that shows that people with Apple Watches live longer and/or with better quality of life than those without. You won't find one, and it's not as black-and-white as one might think due to iatrogenic harms and the nocebo effect: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-15/wrist-...
You are making evidence-free claims.
NO. It is GOOD for the public, because the public needs protection from criminals and law-breakers.
This is not a public health 'hurdle' or emergency. And, if Apple believes in The Cause that is being proposed in this comment, it can simply PAY MASIMO and be Done-zo with this public health.
There are other pedometers, heart rate sensors, fall sensors, etc. There is no reason people who were in the market for such products have to buy Apple Watches. They can get other brands. If you think that it's a tragedy that Apple couldn't maximally capitalize on the New Years resolution surge in interest in health, take heart that other companies that did not apparently flagrantly violate the law are picking up the slack.
I have one of the infringing devices, and the blood oxygen feature is not a useful one for me. It adds nothing to my life, despite my zeal for quantifying everything. This is due partly to the inaccuracy of the sensor and partly because I don't have a relevant health condition. For someone who has a medical condition that could use such monitoring, there are probably better solutions that are actually fit for purpose. I'll keep wearing the watch for its other functions, but I hope that by the time I want a new revision of smart watch, Apple has changed their behavior and goes back to being a better corporate citizen that doesn't infringe patents and poach employees just because they don't like the deal that Masimo put on the table (or whatever their justification was). Otherwise, I'll just buy the competition or do without.
This is not actually the case whatsoever. There has been 0 ruling on the merits of the patent case. There has been a report from the US ITC that the courts have used as the basis of the bans.
But we do not know if apple will prevail in court. Until that happens, "apple broke the law" is your opinion not a fact.