Apple Watch Risks US Import Ban After Biden Administration Upholds Patent Ruling

[VulchR]

You cant patent what a thing does, only how its doing it. If you figure out a a new way of boiling water, then you can actually patent it.

EDIT: I find patent law rather confusing. Drugs are patented but not the means of synthesising or extracting them....

 

[coolfactor]

"This decision goes beyond AliveCor and sends a clear message to innovators that the U.S. will protect patents to build and scale new technologies that benefit our shareholders."

There, I corrected it.
...

 

[dwaite]

Shame. That feature saves lives.

I guess the chickens are coming home to roost, Apple used to patent troll a lot in the past.

Not really. To be a patent troll is to sue people for patents that you do not yourself utilize.

 

[dwaite]

MP3 players were already out, mobile phones were already out, Apple comes up with a patent that marries the two together and boom we have the iphone. Just because ECG has been out there does not mean it's been in the form that AliveCor uses it in. If AliveCor patents are thrown out because of the issue of ECG already being out there then on that note Apple's iphone patent should be thrown out because MP3 and mobile phones were already out there.

There are so many factual and logical errors in this statement that I can't quite figure out your point.

No, Apple did not patent duct-taping a mp3 player to a phone. Patents are on methods not concepts, so you can't just say "shoe that is also an airplane. boom" on a piece of paper and get a patent.

Nor does your patent for a new way of doing ECG get thrown out because you only invented a new way of using sensors to accomplish it. There's no requirement to say "but it's also a watch band".

 

[dampfnudel]

Don’t worry if Apple thinks they have no other choice they will make a settlement

And bump up the price of the Apple Watch by $50-100 to make up for it.

 

[IG88]

There probably won’t be a ban, but apple can’t simply disable the ECG feature either as they advertised and sold the product with that feature in many markets, so this would expose them to huge class actions.

Ok that answers my question, which was going to be, why can't Apple just disable the ECG app?

 

[svish]

Don't think a ban will happen. Apple will somehow settle this!

 

[_Spinn_]

This would be very unfortunate if this happened. Maybe Apple should just buy AliveCor 🤣

 

[laptech]

This would be very unfortunate if this happened. Maybe Apple should just buy AliveCor 🤣

They will in my opinion if the court rulings are in AliveCor favor, even the appeals.

 

[MacWiz_007]

Money talks. This import ban will never happen.

 

[Brandon916]

Apple definitely did a lot of patent trolling but in this case their is no patent trolling involved. AliveCor did not come up with some vague patent without a legitimate product. They actually make and sell products that use this technology. Apple just stole it and that of course is illegal. There probably won’t be a ban, but apple can’t simply disable the ECG feature either as they advertised and sold the product with that feature in many markets, so this would expose them to huge class actions. I suspect apple will just have to open their wallet and pay substantial amounts to AliveCor for the past violations and possibly royalties for each new Apple Watch sold henceforth.

Steve Jobs: “Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal”
This is Apple's Mantra.

 

[SurferPup]

Bye-bye Biden.

 

[User 6502]

Money talks. This import ban will never happen.

You were wrong, Apple had to pull the latest watches from the us market today. It turns out you can’t steal other peoples IP, even if you’re apple.