Changes nothing really since everyone knows it'll be back on sale one way or another.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Pausing Sales of Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 in U.S. Due to Patent Dispute
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Why? It's the patent holder's monopoly for the period of the patent. It's not yours to use until that time is up. If it takes forever for an inventor to commercialize something or sell the rights to someone else, it's still not yours to take. The world's patent systems operate the same way. It doesn't stifle creativity.
I can't feel bad for Apple here.
Not since this:
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/08/legal-action-against-company-with-pear-logo/
Not since this:
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/08/legal-action-against-company-with-pear-logo/
Or raising the stakes, with loss of revenue. Apple could win damages if they can get the patents invalidated. Apple probably has enough stock to clear for holidays.
You can precisely copy an invention in your lab, or basement, until your heart is content, as long as you don't commercialize it. It's not the idea that is patented, it's the way it is accomplished. The Apple-Massimo patent claims may or may not be obvious or infringe each other, we'll see. This whole issue is not over yet.
A lot of large firms lobby both parties* (AT&T is a classic example), though, increasingly, a number of firms only lobby the DNC (even during GOP administrations). Very few firms exclusively lobby the GOP, for what it’s worth, and they tend to be the sorts of industries you’d expect (and that might just be a rational response, doesn’t make much sense to spend money lobbying a party that is dead set to increase regulatory or legal pressure on your industry, might as well limit lobbying to the party that can be swayed).
* This is actually the classic approach. The idea is to lobby for favorable regulations and legislature regardless of party in power. (Surely, you can see why a large firm might opt to do that.) One party lobbying has historically been restricted to groups like the National Association of Education that are politically aligned with a particular party. Business lobbying of just one party really didn’t occur until around the year 2000. I wonder how much these firms spend on lobbying the GOP. (If I had to take a guess, I’d suspect Masimo spends a larger amount on lobbying the RNC than Apple does.)
If we disagree, it’s only in the solutions, not the premises. Yes IP is important, but the current US patent system isn’t a good way of protecting IP (or helping innovation or consumers or pretty much anyone except trolls). And no, infringers shouldn’t be able to monetize infringement, but again, the proposed manner of doing that (a total ban on the whole device) is a terribly calibrated method of achieving that reasonable goal. It hurts Apple and consumers in absurd disproportion to whatever harm is suffered by the patent holder.
What if Apple disables the feature in software/firmware to comply?
I wonder if they'd have to offer refunds to every customer who bought one.
I wonder if they'd have to offer refunds to every customer who bought one.
Apple hired Masimo employees and executives then stole their IP. This is what Apple has repeatedly done - steal like it thinks it’s okay when they try to bully the patent owner to give it to them for a penny’s worth of the real value.
I have read people saying patent trolls need to be gone on here but this isn’t a patent troll at all. A real company with real employees hired from it to steal their IP.
I love Apple but hope it gets broken up at some point for the monopoly that it is - and at the same time love me some AAPL. The Apple way is now to steal innovations along the way without paying fair dues. Whether it be from Qualcomm-sized companies to app developers who make the ecosystem work and should be protected from Apple’s theft of their IP but aren’t. Apple acts like a grade school bully - and the principal just got wind of what it’s been doing, again. Love it.
I'd imagine removing advertised features would be inviting a class action lawsuit but then again they may have covered their butts in the T&C.
I dunno, you’re probably giving too much credence to Masimo’s position and not enough to Apple’s. Apple probably had to do significant non-trivial work to get transflective blood oxygenation detection working (since usually you’d just opt to do transmissive for simplicity’s and accuracy’s sake, but that doesn’t really work well for the watch), in terms of sensor design as well as computer algorithm design (with transmissive blood oxygenation detection, there’s little need for any “smarts” or computational power, it’s usually a matter of directly measuring the intensity of light). While it’s probably true that Apple wouldn’t have been able to get transflective detection working without knowledgeable researchers (including former Masimo employees), I don’t think there’s any public evidence of direct IP theft (despite Masimo’s claims), which is one of the facts of the case that would have to be established at trial. It does seem as though Masimo holds that it should own the research work of its former employees when they work at other companies, though, and that is a dangerously broad precedent that would bork the US IP system even more than it already is.
Oh great! I thought it went into effect right away. Didn't catch that on my quick read.
"The Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Apple Watch Series 9 will no longer be available to order from Apple’s website in the U.S. after 3 p.m. ET on Thursday, December 21. In-store inventory will no longer be available from Apple retail locations after December 24.
The ITC’s decision only prohibits Apple from selling the affected Apple models. For now, this means the devices will remain available for purchase from other outlets including Amazon and Best Buy."
All it does it stop the sales directly from Apple, USA.
One can still buy from 3rd party resellers like Amazon, BB, etc... who still has any inventory.
If there really is a demand for those products, then those inventory will sell out, eventually.
Let's see what happens next.
The ITC’s decision only prohibits Apple from selling the affected Apple models. For now, this means the devices will remain available for purchase from other outlets including Amazon and Best Buy."
All it does it stop the sales directly from Apple, USA.
One can still buy from 3rd party resellers like Amazon, BB, etc... who still has any inventory.
If there really is a demand for those products, then those inventory will sell out, eventually.
Let's see what happens next.
What’s worse is software patents. Did you know there was a patent that prevented having mini games during loading screens in video games? How can a concept as broad as that get a patent? Back when loading screens and having a mini game MATTERED. This would have made customer experience so much better. But since there was a patent we all had to suffer long loading times with nothing to do.
If Apple hadn’t stolen IP, it wouldn’t be facing a sales import ban. What’s even funnier to me is that if Apple made the products here it wouldn’t have an import ban at all. Apple has done whatever it could to provide the most shareholder value so Tim gets his annual $100m stock grants. And the whole executive team and board are with him. They could create their own IP but instead steal it repeatedly. They could buy it but instead go to these measures. Apple is a bad actor here and that’s why it’s facing a sales ban. Love to see it next on iPhones. Apple has abused that so badly it’s beyond belief.
Apple is an American company first. It’s a foreign company in Europe, your post makes little sense.
So dumb. Should not be made to stop selling them. Everyone is always after the successful companies. If Masimo was a successful company, they would be a household name and would be selling out of their products. Hmm..
Guess the value of the newest AW’s will go up in the used market if this stop sales lasts a long time though.
Guess the value of the newest AW’s will go up in the used market if this stop sales lasts a long time though.
Holiday stock sale!
Masimo is an extremely successful company, they just don't sell or directly deal with public. They are a well-known and common name in healthcare.
Again, there is no direct proof of IP theft, that would have to come out in the course of a patent trial. The import ban doesn’t mean that there’s an establishment of fault, it’s more like a temporary injunction in a civil case (like Epic vs Apple). I’m not even a lawyer, and yet I seem to understand more of how the legal system works than many of the commentators here.
Is the Patent Claim even legitimate? Is this like when SCO said they had the Patent to Linux and they were threatening to sue everyone in the World that used Linux in any capacity?
That’s what would have to be proven at trial. And the trial would probably be as long and drawn out as the SCO trials. Perhaps Masimo has more of a leg to stand on than SCO did, because SCO was more or less claiming a patent on how Unix-like operating systems worked (and on POSIX itself).