Apple Watch blood oxygen ban should never have been put in place, and Apple wants it overt...

AppleInsider

Apple is urging a U.S. court to undo a trade decision that blocked imports of the Apple Watch because of the blood-oxygen sensor implementation, claiming it unfairly impacted millions of users.

Apple fights blood-oxygen ban on Apple Watch in court

On Monday, Apple asked a U.S. appeals court to overturn a trade ruling that forced it to disable the Apple Watch's blood-oxygen feature. The company argued the decision wrongly penalized millions of users.

Masimo, the medical tech firm behind the complaint, said Apple was trying to rewrite existing law to protect its product. Reuters points out that the judges questioned whether Masimo's competing device, still undeveloped at the time, justified the International Trade Commission ruling.

Apple's legal team argued the ban was unjustified since Masimo's watch was "purely hypothetical" in 2021. Masimo, however, doesn't believe that a finished product needed to exist. Doubly so, as it maintains Apple hired key Masimo employees, which facilitated Apple's knowledge of Masimo's then-secret blood oxygen sensor innovations.

A battle five years in the making

The years-long battle began all the way back in 2020 when Masimo alleged Apple stole trade secrets and infringed ten patents used in the Apple Watch's health tracking features. Masimo also accused Apple of poaching staff and using confidential technology without proper credit.

Masimo's 2020 lawsuit sought damages, a sales ban, and credit for inventions allegedly misappropriated by Apple. The case also targeted former Masimo and Cercacor scientists now working for Apple.

Although Masimo's trade secret claims eventually fell apart in California, the ITC ruled in 2023 that Apple had infringed several of its patents. This ruling temporarily blocked imports of Apple Watch models using the contested sensor.

Apple disabled the blood oxygen feature via software to keep selling the Apple Watch in the United States during the appeal process. Masimo's own smartwatch, the W1, was later found to infringe Apple's design patents.

Amid the ongoing dispute, Masimo CEO Joe Kiani resigned after losing a power struggle with a hedge fund, though his departure was unrelated to Apple. Kiani had previously expressed willingness to settle, but Apple made no move to negotiate.

When the smartwatch market declined in 2024, Apple saw a major drop in shipments partly due to the patent dispute.



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fred257

You can get this feature on 30 dollar smartwatches from China. Not sure why this still stands..

mplsp

Fred257 said:

You can get this feature on 30 dollar smartwatches from China. Not sure why this still stands..

Well, intellectual property rights and patent enforcement are nonexistent in China, so that would explain why it's available there.

sbdude

MplsP said:

Fred257 said:

You can get this feature on 30 dollar smartwatches from China. Not sure why this still stands..

Well, intellectual property rights and patent enforcement are nonexistent in China, so that would explain why it's available there.

I think he meant you can buy them in the US, from China. Not in China.

charlesn

I really expected this to get settled quickly once Kiani was out of the picture. "Getting" Apple had become a senseless, great white whale obsession for him, as evidenced by his expenditure of over $100 million in legal fees for which he got nothing of tangible value, only a pyrrhic victory in Apple disabling blood ox readings via software in watches sold in the U.S. starting Jan 2024. But the $100+ million in legal fees was nothing compared to Kiani's $1 billion dollar purchase of a high end audio company comglomerate. If you're wondering why the hell a medical devices company would spend a billion on high end audio, the hedge fund shareholders of Masimo were wondering the same. Supposedly, Kiani did this to get access to retail channels (think Best Buy, etc) through which he hope to sell Masimo watches and other consumer products. What, you never saw the big Masimo display of products at Best Buy? Exactly. And this insane purchase led to the hedgies giving Kiani the boot. Masimo finally unloaded Sound United in May but could only get $350 million for it, a loss of over $650 million in the three years since the purchase, all thanks to Kiani. What a guy!

ashsaturday

I told everyone I knew to hold onto their watches with this feature enabled already, I kept mine from series 7 and gave it to my sister, I have a series 9 before they disabled it. Apple really fumbled on this and the sales of new watches are on hold until they get the future back, I know that they will just simply enable it for all users. You have it, but utilizing it daily, has become a pattern that I would never give up.

davidw

Fred257 said:

You can get this feature on 30 dollar smartwatches from China. Not sure why this still stands..

Most likely these China smartwatch companies are paying Masimo a small licensing fee for the use of their patents, as a form of ...... "go away money".

Apple on the other hand, do not believe on principle, that they should be paying a dime in licensing patents that they think Masimo do not deserve to own or they are not infringing on. Remember, Masimo was willing to settle for what probably would had amounted to pocket change for Apple.

In the course of this lawsuit, Apple managed to dispute and invalidate most of the 10 patents Masimo claimed to own and were using to sue Apple. Apple won jury verdicts that they were not infringing on nearly all of remaining patents.  And the 1 patent where Apple loss the infringement suit, they loss by just 1 vote. (Where they needed 7 jury votes to prove non-infringement, they only got 6.) It was this one patent infringement that got their Apple Watch banned. What should had happen was that Apple should had had to put up a bond to cover any licensing fee as a result of losing the appeal, instead of having to disable the blood monitoring function in the watch.  

Masimo don't even have enough brains to be a patent troll. What they should had done was to let Apple continue to use the "infringing" patent that is in dispute. This way, if Apple loses the appeal, Apple will have to pay a large sum for the infringing use of their patents. But if Apple cease using the patent in dispute during the appeal, Masimo will only get any licensing money going forward (if Apple were to lose the appeal.) With the possibility of new tech replacing their patents by the time the appeal process is done.

My thinking is that Masimo was thinking that Apple would surely settle with some "go away money", rather than to have their Apple Watch banned in the US. 

edited July 8

onemoreone

davidw said:

Most likely these China smartwatch companies are paying Masimo a small licensing fee for the use of their patents, as a form of ...... "go away money".

I guarantee that the Chinese companies aren’t paying Masimo a single cent, since Masimo has no way to sue them in China to stop them.

macgui

I have three Watches with SPO2 activated, and two without, as yet. A Watch without it functioning still has a whole lot of utility for me, so it doesn't matter. Sooner or later, a software update will restore it.

There are those who vow they'll never by a Watch without it because it's that important. I guess. What these proclamations never seem to provide is what they're doing for SPO2 monitoring in the meantime. Do they buy a watch that does have the feature, and if so, what watch. Do they carry a dedicated SPO2 monitor in the meantime?

I don't suffer from COPD, asthma, or any other impaired breathing disease or condition, so monitoring isn't a high priority for me. I have Watches and a finger-tip monitor that provide it, all out of curiosity for the most part.

So I'm good till maybe the Ultra 3 and S12 Watches. Since they're a pretty mature platform it'll take at least a holographic projection of an hour glass before I buy again. Even if the SPO2 sensor isn't active.

davidw

onemoreone said:

davidw said:

Most likely these China smartwatch companies are paying Masimo a small licensing fee for the use of their patents, as a form of ...... "go away money".

I guarantee that the Chinese companies aren’t paying Masimo a single cent, since Masimo has no way to sue them in China to stop them.

Your guarantee is worthless.

This from 2002, but it shows that even back then,  Masimo is not ignoring the China market.

https://www.masimo.com/company/news/news-media/2002/#news-0b577c4f-3026-4d12-b4c1-e9a03cc3485f

>Irvine, California, December 19, 2002, Masimo, the innovator of motion and low perfusion-tolerant pulse oximetry technology, announced today that it has formed a strategic alliance with leading Chinese medical device manufacturer, Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., Ltd. (Mindray) of Shenzhen, China. Mindray, the largest domestic manufacturer of patient monitoring products in China, will incorporate Masimo SET® motion and low perfusion tolerant pulse oximetry as its primary pulse oximetry technology for its patient monitoring products.<

edited July 8

danox

Prior art dating back to the 1840’s…. Karl Matthes, Glenn Millikan, and Takuo Aoyagi were prominent in the development of pulse-oximetry in the 20th century.

https://www.cablesandsensors.com/pages/history-of-pulse-oximetry If anyone should be suing, maybe it should be Hewlett Packard or Takuo Aoyagi. Most of the basic ideas was done (conceived) by others, the advancement of mechanical engineering technology allowed the equipment to be made smaller and more compact in time, what would have been new to them would have been all of the advancements made in alloys and materials over the years which was used to build smaller more compact devices, however the core functionality, would have been recognizable to them. Massimo and Apple merely built upon/on their shoulders, the prior art of many others who came before them starting with an idea in the 1840’s.

edited July 8