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Masimo's patent related to the Apple Watch is set to expire in August 2028. At this point Miasimo is just a patent troll milking every dollar they can while the getting is good… 😉

If you build a device, you're not a patent troll.

patent troll (n) - a company that obtains the rights to one or more patents in order to profit by means of licensing or litigation, rather than by producing its own goods or services.

Our hospital is chock full of Miasimo SpO2 sensors, and have been as long as I've been there (6 years), and the previous hospital I worked at used them as well, which pushes that back over a decade. They designed the devices, they patented the devices, and have been building and selling them for a long time.

Just pay the bill Apple, and move on. It's less 10% of the payola you get from Google for doing jack-****.
 
Indeed. While I have heard unsubstantiated claims Massimo wanted over $100 per watch, claims based on FRAND patents say this would have been closer to $10-20 per watch.

Evidently this judgement works out to just under $15 per infringing watch.
Well, if that is true, then weren't Massimo asking for 5 to 10 times FRAND norms and this judgement just gets Apple the normal FRAND pricing they should have wanted/expected?
 
average apple basher: "YEAH! Apple should pay up!"

also average apple basher: "WHY is Apple Watch Series 12 increasing prices now???????? SO GREEDY!!!!"

love it.
Patent lawsuits have gotten pretty ridiculous. Many patents today are so overly broad that you practically need a legal team just to make sure you didn’t accidentally invent or use something that someone already claimed.
For example, RED was granted a patent on recording compressed RAW internally on a digital camera, this is something you’d think shouldn’t even be patentable. Other famously questionable patents include Amazon’s ‘1-Click’ ordering and Apple’s design patent on rounded phone corners.
 
I don't think Apple really wants to be a medical device company. The cost and hassle of getting medical equipment through regulatory approval would require Apple to significantly reorganize its engineering, quality-assurance, documentation, and compliance practices (or run parallel organization, which would be cost inefficient and cause internal friction). It would also complicate and confuse their brand identity. Though it might be funny to see an ad for the Apple watch that includes 20-seconds of pharmaceutical-company-level disclaimers at the end.
They technically are a medical devices company in part at least. The moment they decided to introduce the ECG feature, it was required to be licenced.

In fact you’ll notice that there are several software features that also required licensing.

https://health-products.canada.ca/mdall-limh/information?companyId=145169&lang=eng

So yes, they already are a medical devices company. It just depends on how many more of these health related features get branded as just “wellness” like the SpO2 sensor, or if under certain regulations by virtue of hardware or software just existing, requiring regulatory approval.
 
Masimo's patent related to the Apple Watch is set to expire in August 2028. At this point Miasimo is just a patent troll milking every dollar they can while the getting is good… 😉
So you accept Masimo has an active patent, albeit an expiring one and you still call them a troll? Even 30 seconds of google, or a passing interest in this case will tell you they still actively produce products related that. Being such a blind defender of Apple without even taking a cursory glance at what you're talking about says everything. Apple can afford it, and old mate Cook will still pass the expense on to customers anyway regardless. Rinse and repeat the next time they do it, which they undoubtedly will.
 
like seriously, how do companies decide to infringe on other patents? Do they think "yeah lets copy it no one will notice" ? then pay gojrillions for lawyers and in settlements?
 
Bad for Apple. Hopefully there won't be any ban on the sales of watch with blood oxygen sensor/feature in the US in the future.
 
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like seriously, how do companies decide to infringe on other patents? Do they think "yeah let’s copy it no one will notice" ? then pay gojrillions for lawyers and in settlements?
No. Companies like Apple develop their own technology that perform a similar function. The other company alleges violation to assert a monopoly for the space. In this case, Apple’s tech doesn’t violate. If this were 40 years ago, before the US Govt punted patent appraisal to the courts, this case wouldn’t have made it out of review.
 
like seriously, how do companies decide to infringe on other patents? Do they think "yeah lets copy it no one will notice" ? then pay gojrillions for lawyers and in settlements?
This whole thing might have actually been a play to take over Masimo. At the time they would have picked up the medical tech and Sound United if they had won the suit. Sound United has since been spun off. Imagine Apple getting ahold of the likes of Marantz and Denon for home audio.
 
Why can't they just license Masimo IP and offer us Apple customers A TRUE AND HONEST 1000+ Datapoints per Day SpO2 graph ?? Would be also helpful for detecting diseases and conduct large studies.
 
This is one of those few cases where Apple deserves the blame. They stole from a professional medical device company and copied the technology instead of licensing it.

Scammy way to run a company.
The physics of measuring SpO2 and the routines for analysing the output of a SpO2 monitor aren't exactly rocket science, nor are measuring and analysing heart trace parameters. It is fairly straightforward and frankly obvious. A hobbyist could build something comparable I am sure. Honestly I think the US should stop patenting medicines, medical treatments, medical devices and medical algorithms and patent only the way medicines and devices are manufactured. That would drive competition to reduce prices through more efficient production rather than handing companies functional monopolies over medical necessities. Just my two cents.
 
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Absolute nonsense. The have active products using the technology that they developed. Pretty sure Apple is the one at fault here.

I think you mean they have active products on technology they copied from the inventor, Dr. Takuo Aoyagi (who did so in 1974) and then hastily built an Apple Watch clone to apply their “self-developed” technology to the same form factor…

It’s a shady lawsuit. And that amount is absurd.
 
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Then why you care about a lawsuit that doesn't impact you?
People who are advocating for higher price tags on Apple products negatively affects me as an Apple consumer? Why do you think owning stocks is the only way people are affected by increasing product costs? Ridiculous.
 
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