Masimo Sues Apple for Stealing Trade Secrets for Health Monitoring Functions in Apple Watch

[cmaier]

I still see it being defensive because you commented to my question which was just a simple question and non-bias at all.

Maybe if you reacted to some of those bias comments regarding this issue then as Trump said - All is well.

I would subjectively guess that if this is about Google/Android/Microsoft/Facebook and others you will not be lecturing us about lack of critical thinking and skepticism

I have posted, what, 14,000 times on here? Maybe 5 times total about google/android/Microsoft or facebook?

 

[MrTemple]

I still see it being defensive because you commented to my question which was just a simple question and non-bias at all.

Maybe if you reacted to some of those bias comments regarding this issue then as Trump said - All is well.

I would subjectively guess that if this is about Google/Android/Microsoft/Facebook and others you will not be lecturing us about lack of critical thinking and skepticism

There was no defensiveness in the guy's post.

And now you're just telling yourself strawman stories about what he might say under different circumstances.

Maybe take a break?

 

[coolfactor]

Neither one of those things seem illegal to me. I remember that suit against Apple and Google when they had an agreement not to hire away each others employees. They lost that suit as I recall and had to get rid of that unspoken policy. I also highly doubt that their execs would give away their trade secrets in meetings with Apple. I think the only thing they could have a chance with are the patents.

No, but it's the principle of the matter. If Apple went into the meeting with the intention of never licensing the tech, and instead planting the seed that they will be hiring for the same work, then that's not a good principle, in my mind. Apple then stands on stage after the development is done and claims they've come up with the best tech available... when in fact they possibly "inherited" the tech know-how from workers that they hired away. It just doesn't sit right with me.

Flip this around... what if some of the workers on Apple's Watch team left to go work for another company that company came out with a competing product.... Do you think Apple would stand by idly and do nothing?

I just want to know that Apple has genuinely solved real problems in-house rather than inheriting the solutions through headhunting. That matters to me.

 

[cmaier]

No, but it's the principle of the matter. If Apple went into the meeting with the intention of never licensing the tech, and instead planting the seed that they will be hiring for the same work, then that's not a good principle, in my mind. Apple then stands on stage after the development is done and claims they've come up with the best tech available... when in fact they possibly "inherited" the tech know-how from workers that they hired away. It just doesn't sit right with me.

Flip this around... what if some of the workers on Apple's Watch team left to go work for another company that company came out with a competing product.... Do you think Apple would stand by idly and do nothing?

I just want to know that Apple has genuinely solved real problems in-house rather than inheriting the solutions through headhunting. That matters to me.

People leave apple all the time and go to competitors. It happens every week.

Unless they load up a hard disk full of trade secret documents on the way out the door, Apple doesn’t sue.

In california you are allowed to go work for a competitor. That’s what built Silicon Valley - people leaving a job, taking their knowledge and expertise to another place or starting their own company, and competing.

 

[MrTemple]

No, but it's the principle of the matter. If Apple went into the meeting with the intention of never licensing the tech, and instead planting the seed that they will be hiring for the same work, then that's not a good principle, in my mind. Apple then stands on stage after the development is done and claims they've come up with the best tech available... when in fact they possibly "inherited" the tech know-how from workers that they hired away. It just doesn't sit right with me.

Flip this around... what if some of the workers on Apple's Watch team left to go work for another company that company came out with a competing product.... Do you think Apple would stand by idly and do nothing?

I just want to know that Apple has genuinely solved real problems in-house rather than inheriting the solutions through headhunting. That matters to me.

This is a ridiculous take.

If your secret sauce is so weak your competitor can replicate it after a few meetings, then it wasn’t that special to begin with.

Or worse yet, if your secret sauce is truly special, but you HAND IT AWAY WITHOUT PROTECTION OR AGREEMENT 🤦‍♂️, then you just deserve to get left in the dust.

And the idea that ideas are somehow more legitimate when they are conceived and birthed completely in-house demonstrates an utter lack of understanding of literallly every bit of tech innovation since WWII.

That’s just silly.

 

[MarkB786]

Oh oh. Wait for the software updates that kill the infringing features.

 

[forerunnerg34]

Finally!, the good old times, like Apple and Xerox PARC, pirates are back baby!

 

[cmaier]

Oh oh. Wait for the software updates that kill the infringing features.

That would be a very very long wait

 

[ani4ani]

People leave apple all the time and go to competitors. It happens every week.

Unless they load up a hard disk full of trade secret documents on the way out the door, Apple doesn’t sue.

In california you are allowed to go work for a competitor. That’s what built Silicon Valley - people leaving a job, taking their knowledge and expertise to another place or starting their own company, and competing.

define “their knowledge and expertise;” this is often garnered using using company tech and resources (e.g. labs, production, design and testing facilities and not least, piles of money) that otherwise they would not have access to and therefore would in all likelihood, be knowledge they would / could never have acquired otherwise. It’s a fine line you tread moving between employers taking “your knowledge“ with you.

 

[MrTemple]

define “their knowledge and expertise;” this is often garnered using using company tech and resources (e.g. labs, production, design and testing facilities and not least, piles of money) that otherwise they would not have access to and therefore would in all likelihood, be knowledge they would / could never have acquired otherwise. It’s a fine line you tread moving between employers taking “your knowledge“ with you.

No it effing is not a fine line. Regarding expertise gained through employment, if it’s in your brain it’s yours.

This is agreed at the very outset by both parties.

Apple is profiting HANDSOMELY off the minds of its employees. Off the expertise they bring to Apple and the expertise they generate during their time there.

Again, this is something both parties agree to.

If Apple chooses not to pay an employee enough to want to continue this arrangement, the employee can bring their experience to anybody else who wants to profit by investing in a similar agreement.

JFC it’s the people that make a company great, but you people are talking about serfs, not employees.

 

[alien3dx]

Qualcomm is a very good example of this. Instead of lengthy court battles, just come to agreement, move on and make even more money. These are cut-throat business tactics.

Your also right that these comments get too heated over ethics and picking sides. In the end businesses have one principle, to make money. And these giants dance around that grey line.

Dont ever like that, if you small company you will see people cloning idea such as snake in dos 5.0 and also what throw such as angry bird . The main problem what open source uphold.Support. Patern troll industry is easy work while real development are slow and costly. I agree with qualcom because they do the research and development while other just buying the company and take the ip.

 

[avkills]

Generally larger companies are the ones that trample the smaller companies with IP (intellectual property) suits and bogus non-compete clauses.

It is a very slippery gray area in my opinion. So Apple hires a guy who probably by all accounts was instrumental in Masimo registering patents and such. This guy make his living by knowing how to do this stuff. Is it fair to say he can't go work for anyone else and use what is in his head?

If he was able to replicate anything he did at Masimo without actually taking ANY materials, documents or digital IP from them, then what the ****?

I am personally against any company, corporation or government saying that individuals do not have a right to do work in their chosen field of expertise.

Now the smart thing would have been for Apple to just pay Masimo licensing fees if it was going to be obvious that patents were going to be violated by hiring this guy; which brings up the golden question? SHOULD patents belong to companies or the individuals who filed them? Sure companies provide capital investments that allow such discoveries to be made, but without the brain trust, all that capital just collects dust.

 

[truthertech]

Why does everyone read a news article citing the PR department at a company which is suing Apple and assume that everything that is said is true?

It's just a lack of critical thinking skills. A lack of critical reasoning/thinking is why fake news is so effective.

 

[podlasek]

If Apple did (a) meet with the company, and then (b) hired the employees for their knowledge and skills, then I side with Masimo on this. While I love my Apple Watch, I don't want to see them trample over smaller inventive talent in the marketplace, and especially claim that they came up with the ideas entirely in-house.

So what if they met with masimo and had discussions? if no NDA's or do not hire contracts were signed, and they were impressed with the expertise, they have every right to hire.

If Apple did exploit Masimo, or others, patents, Apple will need to pay for that, that is wrong. if the people they hired came up with better methods than masimo had patented and/or used and Apple used the different methods, then no patents were violated and Apple is clean.

There is a gray area, if like most companies, meetings are held and two groups come up with ideas, and the management team picks person A's ideas over person B's ideas, and person B leaves the company and takes his ideas to a different company(or starts his own) and patents those ideas.

Who does Person B's ideas belong to? If the company has a contract with employees that any ideas developed on company time belong to the company, then Person B's ideas are the original companies, if they don't have that documentation with their employees, Person B owns his ideas and work because the company rejected it.

This is why you see some patent filings from Apple(and others) for it's engineers for technology even if they do not plan on using it at the moment.

 

[truthertech]

It's just a lack of critical thinking skills. People who have such skills would take note of what you pointed out, as well as process that this is an area of complexity and each company may have very different, and very reasonable interpretations of what took place from their perspective. Hence, they would, at a minimum, wait for Apple's response, to form an initial opinion.

 

[cmaier]

Generally larger companies are the ones that trample the smaller companies with IP (intellectual property) suits and bogus non-compete clauses.

It is a very slippery gray area in my opinion. So Apple hires a guy who probably by all accounts was instrumental in Masimo registering patents and such. This guy make his living by knowing how to do this stuff. Is it fair to say he can't go work for anyone else and use what is in his head?

If he was able to replicate anything he did at Masimo without actually taking ANY materials, documents or digital IP from them, then what the ****?

I am personally against any company, corporation or government saying that individuals do not have a right to do work in their chosen field of expertise.

Now the smart thing would have been for Apple to just pay Masimo licensing fees if it was going to be obvious that patents were going to be violated by hiring this guy; which brings up the golden question? SHOULD patents belong to companies or the individuals who filed them? Sure companies provide capital investments that allow such discoveries to be made, but without the brain trust, all that capital just collects dust.

In the US, patents belong to the inventor, until and unless the inventor assigns the invention to someone else. Of course, as a condition of employment, most companies require inventors to assign inventions to them if the invention has anything to do with their employment. Many companies reward employees for their inventions as well.

And in California, in most circumstances, an employer cannot prevent an employee from going to work at a competitor.

 

[truthertech]

Generally larger companies are the ones that trample the smaller companies with IP (intellectual property) suits and bogus non-compete clauses.

It is a very slippery gray area in my opinion. So Apple hires a guy who probably by all accounts was instrumental in Masimo registering patents and such. This guy make his living by knowing how to do this stuff. Is it fair to say he can't go work for anyone else and use what is in his head?

If he was able to replicate anything he did at Masimo without actually taking ANY materials, documents or digital IP from them, then what the ****?

I am personally against any company, corporation or government saying that individuals do not have a right to do work in their chosen field of expertise.

Now the smart thing would have been for Apple to just pay Masimo licensing fees if it was going to be obvious that patents were going to be violated by hiring this guy; which brings up the golden question? SHOULD patents belong to companies or the individuals who filed them? Sure companies provide capital investments that allow such discoveries to be made, but without the brain trust, all that capital just collects dust.

It's not an issue who owns a patent. If an individual developed the IP on their own, they own it. If they were working for a company when they developed it, absent some agreement with the company who was paying them for their time, etc., the company owns it. Any other outcome would be absurd, as why would, absent some unique circumstance the would merit licensing in advance, etc., why would a company fund someone to develop intellectual property that the company wouldn't own?

 

[DoctorTech]

Well, they bring up a couple of issues, but really the only thing that's important is the patent infringement; all the rest of it is sort of BS. Non-competes are invalid in California, so the "hiring away employees" is irrelevant.

And in any case does the information in the employee's head belong to the company or the employee?

I was not aware that non-competes were invalid in California. I was bound by non-competes in several positions I held when I worked in industry for 24 years (I now teach for a Big 10 University).

The question about who the information in an employee's head belongs to really depends on the exact information in question. My background is technical rather than legal but my understanding is that employees can "own" public / common knowledge such as theory about sensor design principles. However, the company would "own" detailed information about the application of that knowledge. For example, the company would own all knowledge of what they have designed, built and tested in the lab along with knowledge of how well that design worked. If you were to draw the contents of an employee's head as a Venn Diagram, you would have a circle of "common knowledge" and another circle of "company knowledge". However, there will be an area of overlap where reasonable people could disagree about whether that particular information piece of information is "common" or "company" knowledge.

 

[MistrSynistr]

The one guy with a Masimo watch complained.


the CEO.

 

[now i see it]

once again (how many times have we heard stories like this?) the 800 lb gorilla tramples the little guy to get what it wants and leaves the aftermath to be cleaned up in the courts. Ruthless

 

[Juan007]

This is a frivolous lawsuit from a company that can't compete with the best. If Masimo doesn't want their engineers hired away then they need to improve salary and working conditions. It's 100% illegal for Apple to NOT hire people because they work at a given company. That's called collusion, and Apple (and others in the industry) got sued for it years ago and had to pay billions.

Why are Masimo's work conditions and salary so terrible that their staff are all leaving? Nevermind, it's easier to sue Apple and blame others for your own failure to produce a product and failure to run a functional organization.

 

[jazstudio]

No, but it's the principle of the matter. If Apple went into the meeting with the intention of never licensing the tech, and instead planting the seed that they will be hiring for the same work, then that's not a good principle, in my mind. Apple then stands on stage after the development is done and claims they've come up with the best tech available... when in fact they possibly "inherited" the tech know-how from workers that they hired away. It just doesn't sit right with me.

Flip this around... what if some of the workers on Apple's Watch team left to go work for another company that company came out with a competing product.... Do you think Apple would stand by idly and do nothing?

I just want to know that Apple has genuinely solved real problems in-house rather than inheriting the solutions through headhunting. That matters to me.

Yeah but establishing intent seems like it would be hard to prove. Sometimes they partner with a company, sometimes the buy the company and other times they decide to do it in-house. We'll see how it plays out but I really believe the case comes down to patents.

 

[bluespark]

If Apple did (a) meet with the company, and then (b) hired the employees for their knowledge and skills, then I side with Masimo on this. While I love my Apple Watch, I don't want to see them trample over smaller inventive talent in the marketplace, and especially claim that they came up with the ideas entirely in-house.

Well, wait a second before pronouncing judgement, because this is a lawsuit, not just a discussion of business etiquette. It is perfectly legal for Apple to meet with company representatives and then later decide to hire them, including for the particular expertise relevant to the earlier meeting. Indeed, that’s a pretty common practice, as companies learn about external talent largely through their external business dealings.

The legal questions are a bit different: Did the employees breach their obligations of confidentiality to their former employer and did Apple infringe on Masimo’s intellectual property? Those are highly fact-specific issues that will have to be developed over time.

 

[farmboy]

Apple is a trojan horse. You never ever let them in. You say "Buy it, or go away". Apple has so much money that lawsuits have become irrelevant. They can steal anything they want without any real consequence.

Not really. While Apple prefers to deal with $Billions and dismiss smaller amounts, the consequences to the plaintiff are quite real if your settlement with Apple is for, say, hundreds of $Millions.

While your approach of Buy or FO is certainly useful, most buyers (reasonably) want to see some details of the product they're interested in buying...so they may already get what they need to go on their own. You have to be careful exactly what you show them or tell them. Most inventors/small corps are entirely too jazzed with the idea of the big potential buyer coming in and they reveal too much. Word to the wise from someone who has been there: DON'T.

 

[avkills]

It's not an issue who owns a patent. If an individual developed the IP on their own, they own it. If they were working for a company when they developed it, absent some agreement with the company who was paying them for their time, etc., the company owns it. Any other outcome would be absurd, as why would, absent some unique circumstance the would merit licensing in advance, etc., why would a company fund someone to develop intellectual property that the company wouldn't own?

Of course, I get that. But I also get that employers should not be allowed to prevent someone from working in their chosen field of expertise. If the guy came up with similar ideas; just from what was in his head then I say it is fair game. If it is a complete copy; then maybe a claim can be made.