As much as I hate awfully broad patents, if the shoe was on the other foot, Apple would unleash its army of lawyers to block the other company’s sales.
In this case, it doesn’t seem like the patents are “awfully broad”. Masimo is actively selling products using the patents, and it seems likely that Apple stole their technology.
From the Apple claims:
Masimo waited over a decade after it filed its original provisional applications, only to file the new applications that became the supposedly infringed patents just a week after Apple launched the first of the accused Apple Watch products.
Sounds to me like that should be illegal, no matter who does it.
Well if it was their IP, and they had it in a product, it’s theirs. They registered it over 10 years ago. Did Apple just magically come up with the same idea, or did they see and copy it?
A patent troll usually sits on patents they don’t use. This is a legitimate company with products. A small guy that cannot afford to file paperwork for all their stuff immediately shouldn’t be penalised.
One thing that is weird is that apple always has a lot of people ready to defend the big multi-billion dollar corp.
I used to be a patent examiner and provisional applications were filed to secure a “prior art date” before everything is finalized, and when I was there had to be followed up within a year with a regular application and only the processes described in the provisional get the provisional date.
You could file a new application in addition to older ones to add processes but the new added stuff gets the new filing date while the already described stuff gets the older date.
And it regularly took 2-3 years for an application to become a patent, and that was a relatively quick one without much back and forth, our backlog to even first look at an application was 18months. I was working on applications that had been ongoing for 5+ years after first being picked up by an examiner. It’s not important when the application became a patent, it’s important when it was filed and what it contained.
I haven’t looked at the specifics in this case (I really don’t miss being an examiner), but patent filing date and prior art dates are complicated and of course apple is going to try and make it sound like they didn’t infringe and masimo is going to try to make it sound like they did. Apple playing games with wording and product release dates is not really relevant. If apple developed the technology they can show their notes and get a prior art date before the masimo provisional application, because it didn’t just show up in their watch the day it was released.
Additionally, the claimed infringement relates to the fact that it’s reflective pulse oximetry using three or more sensors. Your Garmin and old Apple watch aren’t infringing because they use two sensors. I think the patent in its current state should not have been granted. It would be like patenting the placement of three or more CPU sockets on motherboards that fit in a certain rack size.
It pleases me when the law actually protects a smaller company that had its tech stolen by a corporate giant.
https://www.masimopersonalhealth.com/products/masimo-w1
Looks like they’ve been selling this since November 9th 2022 at the latest.
The trolling comes from stuff like this:
“Non-invasive physiological sensor cover”
US US11779247B2 Abraham Mazda Kiani Masimo Corporation
- Priority 2009-07-29
- Filed 2022-12-20
- Granted 2023-10-10
- Published 2023-10-10
They were fine with selling their own watch in a “patent pending” state over 10 years after having filed a provisional application, but the moment Apple announced their own watch, they hurried to write a final application after the fact worded in a way that would make Apple infringe on it thanks to having a 10+ year old priority on it.
They’ve been pulling the same stunt a bunch of times:
https://patents.google.com/?assignee=Masimo&oq=Masimo&sort=new
Several 2023 patents, have a priority as far back as 2006!
Someone at Apple’s legal dept is gonna have a bad day
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
A statement (via CNBC) from the Office of US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the agency “decided not to reverse the ITC’s [International Trade Commission] determination” after “careful consideration.”
The ITC issued the ban after finding that Apple infringed on blood oxygen saturation technology patented by a company called Masimo.
It also ordered Apple to stop selling any previously-imported devices with the infringed-upon tech.
While Apple attempted to block the decision while awaiting an appeal, the ITC denied Apple’s request, and the other chance of intervention was a veto from President Joe Biden, which didn’t happen.
Apple will also continue selling the Watch SE, as it doesn’t come with a blood oxygen sensor.
But both of those methods might not be enough to satisfy the ITC, which is why Apple could always choose to settle with Masimo instead.
Saved 47% of original text.
Poor Apple… if only the most valuable company on the planet could afford to pay the patent-holders their fair share… but money is tight. They only made $99.8 billion dollars in profit last year.
