ITC agrees to investigate alleged Apple Watch patent infringement
The U.S. International Trade Commission has agreed to open an investigation to determine whether the Apple Watch infringes on patents held by health tech company AliveCor.
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Credit: Andrew O'Hara, AppleInsider
On Monday, the USITC said it voted to open an inquiry into the alleged patent infringement. The vote follows an official filing by AliveCor back in April.
The USITC said it would announcement a target data for completing the investigation within 45 days.
AliveCor is a company that makes electrocardiogram (ECG) hardware and related services. The company lodged a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple in December 2020, claiming that the Apple Watch infringes on its intellectual property related to using wearable sensors for cardiac monitoring.
The company was the first to debut a consumer ECG device, the KardiaBand, cleared by the Food and Drug Administration. Unlike the Apple Watch, use of the KardiaBand had to be approved by a user's doctor. And, after Apple debuted ECG capabilities on the Apple Watch Series 4, AliveCor pulled the KardiaBand from sale.
Credit: Andrew O'Hara, AppleInsider
On Monday, the USITC said it voted to open an inquiry into the alleged patent infringement. The vote follows an official filing by AliveCor back in April.
The USITC said it would announcement a target data for completing the investigation within 45 days.
AliveCor is a company that makes electrocardiogram (ECG) hardware and related services. The company lodged a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple in December 2020, claiming that the Apple Watch infringes on its intellectual property related to using wearable sensors for cardiac monitoring.
The company was the first to debut a consumer ECG device, the KardiaBand, cleared by the Food and Drug Administration. Unlike the Apple Watch, use of the KardiaBand had to be approved by a user's doctor. And, after Apple debuted ECG capabilities on the Apple Watch Series 4, AliveCor pulled the KardiaBand from sale.
Comments
The insanity and blatant grabs for cash have become incessant
I remember decades ago when the tobacco companies were being sued. They lost a case for many billions of dollars, and with that decision their stock shot up. I wondered why it went up when the lost. Because all the questions about liability had been answered, and even though the answers weren't in their favour, it meant they still had a right to exist. Losing a court case was a big win for them.
I'm sure that Tim Cook gets weekly status reports about the various court cases against Apple every week. At Tim's level, he doesn't need to see all the details. At the end of the year he probably wants to know how many billions Apple paid out in court fines. If the number is under $5B, he probably says "Okay, what's next on the agenda?"
Patents have a short lifetime anyway. They were only 17 years in duration until 1995 when they were lengthened to 20 years. Design patents are only 15 years. The duration may differ in other countries. And that includes all the time from when you file it to when you first start selling things with it, which often takes a few years. So the practical lifetime of a patent is only 10 to 15 years. Compare that with copyrights which are (typically) 70 years past the death of the copyright holder (which sometimes adds up to 150 years) and trademarks which are permanent.
While trademark lifetimes probably should be indefinite, copyrights of 150 years seem to be way too long and patents seem to be way too short. For example, if I write a novel, I really don't expect to be earning royalties for 70 years past my death. I'm not motivated to create things for money that I can earn after my death. Most copyrighted IP is past its prime after 10 to 20 years anyway, while many patents could be useful for 20-100 years. I remember when the Segway was released around 2001. It's patent has probably expired by now, even though the thing could still be useful and profitable to sell for another 50 years.