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ITC Denies Apple's Request for a Stay on Looming Apple Watch Import Ban

GMShadow said:
https://www.mddionline.com/digital-...health-watch-for-consumers-on-a-limited-basis

Literally their product.



Assimo doesn't want to license their patents, they want 1.8 billion dollars and co-ownership of Apple's patents on their sensors for a perpetual revenue stream.
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That is their consumer product, not their FDA-approved lines that aren't available to the public and connect to hospital monitoring systems. Look up their neonatal line that will fit on newborns so small that an Apple Watch could wrap around their waist.

I'm in clinical medicine. Think what you want, though.
 
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I literally thought that they might have been a patent troll, but I decided to do some research before sounding stupid in public.

As others have said, that watch thing they make is hardly their bread and butter. Going to be very interesting how this plays out.
 
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GMShadow said:
Masimo is worthless, and this FTC would likely sue to block anyway.

Apple needs to countersue over this turd.

Masimo_20W1_20health_20watch_0.png
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Wall Street values them at ~$6B ... and please elaborate what makes them a turd?
 
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GMShadow said:
Assimo doesn't want to license their patents, they want 1.8 billion dollars and co-ownership of Apple's patents on their sensors for a perpetual revenue stream.
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Sure, that doesn’t mean Apple hasn’t figured out their paths.

This case started in 2021. Apple has had time to chart plans for everything from removing the sensor to licensing to buying Masimo or whatever they plan to do.

Apple will be fine at the end of it all and they’ll be selling Apple Watches. No need to lose sleep over it.
 
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GMShadow said:
https://www.mddionline.com/digital-...health-watch-for-consumers-on-a-limited-basis

Literally their product.

[snip]

Assimo doesn't want to license their patents, they want 1.8 billion dollars and co-ownership of Apple's patents on their sensors for a perpetual revenue stream.
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I mean, they're not required to license their patents, are they? This isn't a FRAND-related patent. Don't get me wrong, I think the patent system is very broken and needs reform, but Masmio is well within their rights to ask for what they think their patent is worth. It's not like Apple doesn't pull legal shenanigans themselves all the time, they just don't like to be on the receiving end of it.
 
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LogicalApex said:
Lose their job why?

Apple is aware of the issue and they prefer to push it as far as they want to. They could license the patent if they wanted to.

Same pattern they had against Qualcomm. They eventually caved, but are still trying to build around the patents while simultaneously paying Qualcomm for their modems.

Apple has enough money and expertise that these decisions are made with them seeing them as their best choices. They aren’t understaffed or undercapitalized. No one should be fired in that context.
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agree, but this time Apple is going to lose some credibility. There are quite a few posts this week where people think Apple might disable SpO2 via SW update, this topic of stoping sales is all over the news, my daughter (who is not technical and does not follow MR, reddit etc) picked up a news feed and asked me if I heard about this ...
The issue with Qualcomm - no-one other than Apple tech nerds care ...
Whichever way this will go, who knows - but it will keep a bad case in people's mouth
 
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Is it just me or does it seem like this won't affect Apple all that much? Won't they still sell all of their devices via 3rd party channels? I'm sure hundreds of thousands of watches are being shifted to 3rd party sellers as we speak. I know Apple probably makes slightly less money on those sales, but surely that's a tiny blip for them.
 
jz0309 said:
agree, but this time Apple is going to lose some credibility. There are quite a few posts this week where people think Apple might disable SpO2 via SW update, this topic of stoping sales is all over the news, my daughter (who is not technical and does not follow MR, reddit etc) picked up a news feed and asked me if I heard about this ...
The issue with Qualcomm - no-one other than Apple tech nerds care ...
Whichever way this will go, who knows - but it will keep a bad case in people's mouth
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They could disable it for ones going forward to the USA but they won't change it to disable ones already sold as that could lead to lawsuits unless a judge orders them to do so.
 
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goonie4life9 said:
This seems slightly worse than the Apple Maps debacle and yet no one has lost their job. I wonder why that is.
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Because the decision to not agree to whatever terms Massimo required were in the upper echelons of the Executive Suite - and probably approved by Tim himself.


Apple Fan 2008 said:
This will likely end in Apple buying Masimo.
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As others have noted, Masimo has a market value of ~USD 6 billion and with the premium stockholders would want, this could be a ~USD 9 billion or more deal. And considering Massimo's product line is commercial in nature, not consumer, those products are useless to Apple as a company.

And this presumes Massimo even wants to sell. If not, they could likely take a "poison pill" to prevent Apple from acquiring them.

LogicalApex said:
Sure, that doesn’t mean Apple hasn’t figured out their paths.

This case started in 2021. Apple has had time to chart plans for everything from removing the sensor to licensing to buying Masimo or whatever they plan to do.

Apple will be fine at the end of it all and they’ll be selling Apple Watches. No need to lose sleep over it.
Click to expand...

Per an article in The New York Times, Apple and Massimo first discussed the issue back in 2013, but could not come to an agreement. My guess is Apple decided they could "clean sheet" the technology and when they hit a roadblock with five of the patents, sued to get them invalidated (of which they were able to successfully do with three of them).
 
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CWallace said:
Because the decision to not agree to whatever terms Massimo required were in the upper echelons of the Executive Suite - and probably approved by Tim himself.




As others have noted, Masimo has a market value of ~USD 6 billion and with the premium stockholders would want, this could be a ~USD 9 billion or more deal. And considering Massimo's product line is commercial in nature, not consumer, those products are useless to Apple as a company.

And this presumes Massimo even wants to sell. If not, they could likely take a "poison pill" to prevent Apple from acquiring them.



Per an article in The New York Times, Apple and Massimo first discussed the issue back in 2013, but could not come to an agreement. My guess is Apple decided they could "clean sheet" the technology and when they hit a roadblock with five of the patents, sued to get them invalidated (of which they were able to successfully do with three of them).
Click to expand...

I have a friend that's high up at Masimo. The short version is the two companies couldn't agree on how to work together. Apple then hired their top devs and **** got real. The lawyers got involved and here we are. The CEO of Masimo hates Apple with a passion. All Apple products are banned from use on the corporate network.

My guess is Apple ends up buying Masimo.
 
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richard371 said:
They could disable it for ones going forward to the USA but they won't change it to disable ones already sold as that could lead to lawsuits unless a judge orders them to do so.
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The ITC exclusion order only prevents Apple from importing more watches into the U.S.

The ITC does not have jurisdiction over products that have already been imported. Apple cannot be ordered to disable anything on watches that have already been imported.

Additionally, the ITC commissioners who issued the exclusion order did not entirely agree with the findings of the administrative law judge who conducted the ITC trial, so there is an opening for things to get better or worse for Apple on appeal, where the appeals court will review the factual findings and could potentially come to an entirely different conclusion than the ITC did regarding invalidity and/or infringement.

For what it's worth, a patent infringement trial in the federal courts (separate from the ITC investigation) ended in a hung jury with all but one juror siding with Apple. Masimo is not in a particularly strong position here since all they have right now is the ITC exclusion order working in their favor. But if it is upheld on appeal, Apple will have to either change the design or take a license, assuming Masimo refuses to sell the patent to Apple.
 
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Sorinut said:
Worthless? Masimo has their equipment (which is not that watch you have a photo of) in every hospital in North America, and a generous slice of Europe. We (hospital I work at) buy a lot of their sensors yearly.

Hardly. Current estimates are $6-10 billion.
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Ha, I was going to say the same thing 😂 I deal with their stuff every day. Chances are if you walk into a healthcare facility, something of theirs is in there 😂
 
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So disable the sensor, wait them out and add it back. Or buy the company or another company that does the same.
 
LogicalApex said:
Lose their job why?

Apple is aware of the issue and they prefer to push it as far as they want to. They could license the patent if they wanted to.

Same pattern they had against Qualcomm. They eventually caved, but are still trying to build around the patents while simultaneously paying Qualcomm for their modems.

Apple has enough money and expertise that these decisions are made with them seeing them as their best choices. They aren’t understaffed or undercapitalized. No one should be fired in that context.
Click to expand...

Apple is 'aware' they are stealing someone else's IP and trying to 'push it as far as they want to'. I actually agree, this seems to be what is happening. I'm ashamed to be a fan of Apple at this point.

Masimo is not an IP troll, they are a manufacturer of great medical products and have put a lot of time, effort and money into researching and building their products. Shame on Apple for thinking they can just come along and take it, and 'push as far as they want'.
 
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jz0309 said:
There are quite a few posts this week where people think Apple might disable SpO2 via SW update,
Click to expand...

Eradik said:
jz0309 said:
Apple might disable SpO2 via SW update
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I doubt they will go to this extreme, but if they did they'd better be sending me a partial refund if they're going to nerf it.
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just to be clear - you only partially quoted my post, I never said what you quoted, put it in bold above
 
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