ITC Wants Apple Watch Sales Ban Reinstated: 'Apple Presents a Weak and Unconvincing Case'

[MacRumors]

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) today formally opposed Apple's motion for the Apple Watch sales ban to remain paused for the duration of Apple's appeal.

In a document filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, ITC lawyers said "Apple presents a weak and unconvincing case to invoke the extraordinary remedy of a stay pending appeal," adding that Apple's arguments "amount to little more than an indisputably adjudicated infringer requesting permission to continue infringing the asserted patents."

The court is accepting responses from other parties in support of the ITC's ruling until January 15, so the Apple Watch should remain available until early next week at a minimum.

In October, the ITC ruled that Apple Watch models with blood oxygen sensing infringed on patents owned by medical technology company Masimo, and ordered that the import and sale of these devices be banned in the U.S. as a result. The feature is available on the Apple Watch Series 6 and newer, excluding Apple Watch SE models.

Masimo has accused Apple of stealing trade secrets and poaching employees to develop its blood oxygen sensing functionality. Last month, Masimo said it was open to settlement talks, but Apple had reportedly not expressed any interest at the time.

In December, Apple briefly paused sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 across its U.S. retail stores and online store. After appealing the ITC's ruling with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Apple was granted a temporary stay, leading to the ban being paused and sales resuming for now.

Apple is reportedly working on software changes to address the alleged patent infringement, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency is expected to rule on these changes later this week. However, Masimo believes that the Apple Watch's hardware design will have to change to become compliant, and the ITC also expressed skepticism.

"To the extent Apple relies on the soon-expected ruling from Customs and Border Protection ("CBP") as to whether certain redesigned Apple Watches infringe the Asserted Patents, those arguments are, at best, misplaced," ITC lawyers said in today's filing. "A favorable ruling to Apple has no bearing on Apple's alleged likelihood of success on the merits as to any raised issue, and instead would undermine Apple's 'irreparable harm' argument."

We have shared the ITC's full response as a PDF.

Article Link: ITC Wants Apple Watch Sales Ban Reinstated: 'Apple Presents a Weak and Unconvincing Case'

 

[Justin Cymbal]

I’m glad that I got my order placed for the series 9 in November!

I bought mine on Amazon for only $349 when it was on sale

 

[AlmightyKang]

Ah yeah so we have the following timeline.

• Apple makes watch.
• Masimo tries to launch competing watch which no one even hears about.
• Apple sues Masimo for patent violation for the watch archetype.
• Masimo stock and value tanks.
• Masimo executives switch their business model to patent litigation with an eye on unrealistically large demands on royalties.
• Masimo sues Apple for a minor and vague technical infringement and gets a sales ban.
• Lawyers throw monkey dung at each other for months.
• Consumers are hurt because Apple takes things off the market and/or cripples them.
• Masimo customers are hurt because all the company's money goes to lawyers rather than their core customers.

Do you know who I feel sorry for here? Casio and Garmin lurking in a shadow in the dark corner wondering when someone will give them some attention.

 

[filmantopia]

Consider this my formal disagreement with the opposition to the ban pause.

 

[MNGR]

Consider this my formal disagreement with the opposition to the ban pause.

Can we complain about the ITC?

 

[Pitogyro]

This is humiliation, especially at a time when they need as few distractions away from the Vision Pro as possible.

If Apple is at fault here, they deserve every bit of it.

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

Massimo going thermonuclear war on this. They say Apple Watch is a stolen product

 

[avkills]

Going to be interesting. I don't think Apple is going to get into the "pro" medical market anytime soon which is Masimo's primary business. Masimo is attempting to enter into a highly competitive consumer market. Masimo should accept a small royalty if it is indeed found that Apple infringed.

Apple should be more careful, but this type of **** is so complicated that if you really truly did a deep dive into anything related to computing, everyone is probably infringing on everyone else in some manner.

 

[Apple_Robert]

This was expected.

 

[lkrupp]

Don’t get all anxious about Apple not being able to sell its watches. That’s simply NOT going to happen. One way or the other this will be resolved. Apple will either get around the patents involved or they will settle with Masimo. Either way Apple watches are not going anywhere.

I have read a few pundit’s opinions on why Apple is dragging this out. The consensus is that Apple wants to make it as expensive and time consuming to the plaintiffs to send a message to others thinking about bringing suit, that message being “we can make this very painful for you.” I believe a report right here on MacRumors stated that Masimo has spent over $100,000,000.00 so far in this fight. Its profit last year was only $120,000,000.00. Think about that for a minute.

And if Apple winds up licensing the tech from Masimo you can get bet the price of their watches will rise commensurate with that license agreement.

I can find no information on how well or not Masimo’s watches are selling but I suspect they are not all that great. Masimo would love to get a cut of everything Apple watch sale since their main business is pulse oximeters.

Apple watches will remain on sale and you can take that to the bank.

 

[ersan191]

The irony in all this is that only a very tiny percentage of Apple Watch users even care about blood oxygen measurements on it.

 

[avkills]

The irony in all this is that only a very tiny percentage of Apple Watch users even care about VO2 measurements on it.

Maybe but it is helpful information while exercising.

 

[Student of Life]

This is humiliation, especially at a time when they need as few distractions away from the Vision Pro as possible.

If Apple is at fault here, they deserve every bit of it.

How is this a humiliation?, it's a matter pending litigation issue.

 

[Scipster]

Ah yeah so we have the following timeline.

• Apple makes watch.
• Masimo tries to launch competing watch which no one even hears about.
• Apple sues Masimo for patent violation for the watch archetype.
• Masimo stock and value tanks.
• Masimo executives switch their business model to patent litigation with an eye on unrealistically large demands on royalties.
• Masimo sues Apple for a minor and vague technical infringement and gets a sales ban.
• Lawyers throw monkey dung at each other for months.
• Consumers are hurt because Apple takes things off the market and/or cripples them.
• Masimo customers are hurt because all the company's money goes to lawyers rather than their core customers.

Do you know who I feel sorry for here? Casio and Garmin lurking in a shadow in the dark corner wondering when someone will give them some attention.

Very good (and accurate) list, but missing the first bullet point

• Masimo makes medical devices using patented technology (which Apple is found by an authoritative body to have infringed upon to make its watch)

Generally agree that such disputes are bad for consumers. In an ideal world, consumers should be allowed to freely license all patents and copyrights without cost. Free cinemas, concerts, and sporting events for the masses!

 

[klasma]

*drama intensifies*

🍿😋

 

[seek3r]

Very good (and accurate) list, but missing the first bullet point

• Masimo makes medical devices using patented technology (which Apple is found by an authoritative body to have infringed upon to make its watch)

Generally agree that such disputes are bad for consumers. In an ideal world, consumers should be allowed to freely license all patents and copyrights without cost. Free cinemas, concerts, and sporting events for the masses!

This, if Masimo *just* had tried and failed to make a watch and then become a patent troll that would be a very different case from this, but they made and make lots of tech using this technology, have a demonstrated and consistent market presence, and a well documented case that Apple infringed on their patents and stole their work

Apple’s going to end up paying out, only real question these skirmishes in court are around now is both companies jockeying to be in better positions to negotiate how much

 

[dasmb]

If Apple is at fault here, they deserve every bit of it.

Apple is primarily being accused of stealing "trade secrets" by briefly employing an engineer from Masimo to bring ideas from their medical device technology to consumers.

It's really bad for any employee if this case finds Apple at fault. It means if you ever get really good at something and want to leave to practice your specialty elsewhere, even in a new industry your company is not focused on, you might not be able to. This is a common path to wealth in many engineering pursuits.

 

[AlmightyKang]

Massimo going thermonuclear war on this. They say Apple Watch is a stolen product

It's not. I'll actually chip on this one with something more than being facetious.

They tried to strike down Apple patent 10627783 so they could enter the market with their own product which resembles and is functionally similar to an Apple Watch. The patent defines the entire Apple Watch archetype. This is not looking likely to be a winning proposition so they fall back to the next attempt which is a "Wireless Pulse Oximeter". That's hilarious because I was involved in a project in 1995, way before they went on the market with a similar device in 2005, which did exactly that using an absorption spectrophotometer and a DSP and ISM band transceiver. Bit larger than a watch at the time! This was a university research project and telehealth and heavily documented at the time and published so they can't claim prior art. Anyway Masimo now falls down to having a loose patent on a specific spectrophotometry technique, which is probably a software or mathematically related patent at the end of the day but that's a really iffy area to be in generally.

What is probably happening is lots of lawyers are making a lot of money. And not a lot else.

 

[zlt1228]

It took me a few times reading the title to understand what happened.

Edit: the title was edited

 

[AlmightyKang]

Apple is primarily being accused of stealing "trade secrets" by briefly employing an engineer from Masimo to bring ideas from their medical device technology to consumers.

It's really bad for any employee if this case finds Apple at fault. It means if you ever get really good at something and want to leave to practice your specialty elsewhere, even in a new industry your company is not focused on, you might not be able to. This is a common path to wealth in many engineering pursuits.

This is why when you do high value research, you do it in lab notebooks which are numbered, dated, independently signed, copied and certified externally. Even today, this is done on paper in a lot of places. I expect there to be suitable discrepancies found if Apple are guilty of this and a suitable timeline. If they took a general idea or an interface and independently developed the technology to support it, that would likely not be a patent infringement. But complicated.

Of course Masimo are trumpeting loudly about this and Apple are saying nothing. Only clowns blow trumpets during legal battles as clowns and trumpets keep stock prices high through attention.

 

[GMShadow]

Very good (and accurate) list, but missing the first bullet point

• Masimo makes medical devices using patented technology (which Apple is found by an authoritative body to have infringed upon to make its watch)

Generally agree that such disputes are bad for consumers. In an ideal world, consumers should be allowed to freely license all patents and copyrights without cost. Free cinemas, concerts, and sporting events for the masses!

That hasn't been found. What has been found is that the majority of Masimo's patents for this are invalid, and the remaining are still to be determined.


As for the article, did anyone expect the government to go "Oh nevermind, we were wrong!"?

 

[AlmightyKang]

Very good (and accurate) list, but missing the first bullet point

• Masimo makes medical devices using patented technology (which Apple is found by an authoritative body to have infringed upon to make its watch)

Generally agree that such disputes are bad for consumers. In an ideal world, consumers should be allowed to freely license all patents and copyrights without cost. Free cinemas, concerts, and sporting events for the masses!

I designed (EE side) research medical devices which did this before Masimo entered the market.

Perhaps my research team should be taking $100m 🤣.

We didn't file patents, we filed papers.

Anyway I could be wrong. I'm not a lawyer (thank goodness) and not standing on a battlefield with them so I will get my popcorn out and watch gorillas chucking dung at each other in public.

 

[Porco]

Consider this my formal disagreement with the opposition to the ban pause.

I can certainly agree that that is the very opposite of the position I don’t share for the time being, irony and/or sarcasm notwithstanding, though I would have to stop and think about the official nature of any response I am currently giving by the end of this paragraph, unless I don’t.

 

[TracesOfArsenic]

Apple know they're big enough to squash it, make it go away with money, or bleed the competition with legal proceedings. They're a bully and will "ask for forgiveness" later if they don't get their way.

 

[cdsapplefan]

Get your popcorn 🍿 ready this finna be a long fight! Apple has the money 💰 to prolong the fight, Masimo does not. Time will tell who wins out