teejay2012

deckert63 said:

Is Masimo a real healthcare technology firm or are they a patent troll? If the former, not sure why apple doesn’t pay them the license fees like they do Qualcomm. If the latter, may Masimo rot in special place in hell only reserved for patent trolls. 

Clear infringement by Apple should lead to payment but patents were never intended to be weaponized to the point of preventing inventiveness. That is what trolls do. In this case,  I believe that there is a better than good chance that the remaining 2 claims will be invalidated due to obviousness. The patent strategy by Masimo seems to have been a strategic firing at Apple, timed to the release of their W1 watch which Apple argues infringes design and functionality patents. That case is yet to come to court.  Masimo claims seem to center on some sort of 'opaque extrusion with chamfered edges' to allow light to better reach the sensor. A chamfered edge is a cut on the edge or corner of something that makes it slope slightly rather than being perfectly square. This seems very very trivial and if this 'invention' is what is causing the import ban, well I hope that Apple not only wins, but is able to assign all their legal costs and lost sales to Masimo. While I think that Masimo is not a 'non practising entity' troll,  they sure are acting like one.

flydog said:

igorsky said:

My understanding is the basis for the parent is that it’s an oxymeter on a watch. How in the world was something so general given as a patent to begin with?  Ridiculous. 

Your understanding is not correct. Maybe you should actually read the patents before spouting nonsense.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US10945648B2/en

https://patents.google.com/patent/US10912502B2/en

This might be helpful too https://www.inquartik.com/blog/apple-watch-masimo-pulse-oximeter-litigation/

Thanks for the links. They were useful.
“wherein the protrusion comprises opaque material configured to substantially prevent light piping and comprises one or more chamfered edges” is the patent for which hardware infringement was cited by ITC. Huh?  An opaque plastic rim around the O2 sensor on the bottom of watch? I bet the Masimo W1 watch as that feature. I don't know about you but this sounds ridiculously trivial.  Masimo may be a troll if that is their trade secret 'invention' they are litigating on. If Masimo loses and has all of their patents invalidated , it may be schadenfreude time.

roake said:

teejay2012 said:

tech_traveller said:

I am glad. Whether you like or dislike Apple, medical devices should have some exception to other product categories.

That being said, I hope Masimo gets reimbursed for their troubles.

Masimo has become a bit of a troll and it seems the ITC has over reached on their decision.

From iMore, Florian Mueller is a  patent expert and legal expert has written, “Apple sometimes engages in bullying, but the ITC’s attack is gratuitous, disingenuous and irresponsible,” noting the ITC’s own record shows that Apple created the disputed pulse oxymetry technology independently and that Masimo “tactically designed the patents-in-suit after Apple’s independent innovation, and more than 10 years after the original applications, in order to read on the relevant Apple Watch feature.”

I think Masimo should get 'rewarded' for the trouble they have caused themselves and their shareholders LOL. They have spent 100 million on this and they only make 120 million a year in profit!

Likely, one component of the non-disclosed decision includes reimbursement of Masimo’s legal fees, since they legally prevailed.  Apple will have done everything they could to make this process “not worth it” for Masimo to discourage them from trying to sue Apple for whatever solution they come up with.

I’m in the medical field.  Masimo is high quality (if still overpriced) equipment.  We have a couple of generic finger pulse-oximeters that are $15 each on Amazon.  We recently got a similar one from Masimo that was well over $300 for the same functionality.  

The difference?  Masimo is sold as a medical device where the generic one is not.  They are both accurate, but in the hospital, we are required to use the medically certified ones.

The Masimo one is very well made with high-quality materials, but I would rather replace the $15 unit a couple times that pay more than 20 times that cost for the “nice” one.

Masimo does creates products so in that sense is not the classic 'non practising entity' / troll but they are so aggressive in going after anyone in this space, that patent experts have suggested they are using troll techniques and limiting inventiveness. The tech is 80 years old and from what I have read, Masimo's original patents were improvements but not ground breaking. These have expired or have been invalidated for obviousness and/or prior art, and the more recent patents are 'continuations' with very minor changes. There are 2 remaining that the ITC cites - at least one seems to be hardware related on how light gets transmitted back. That could not be addressed by a software fix, but could perhaps be by simple change to the current watch design. Or like the others, the patent could be invalidated by the USPTO for obviousness. It is hard to come up with much original invention these days. There was a patent issued almost 100 years ago for a refrigerator light to go off with the door closed LOL.. I doubt you could get anything related to be patented today ... even if you changed the color of the bulb, had a different censor to indicate closed door... To be invalidated so easily, Masimo's patents may be in the same level of inventiveness.

tht said:

tech_traveller said:

teejay2012 said:

tech_traveller said:

I am glad. Whether you like or dislike Apple, medical devices should have some exception to other product categories.

That being said, I hope Masimo gets reimbursed for their troubles.

Masimo has become a bit of a troll and it seems the ITC has over reached on their decision.

From iMore, Florian Mueller is a  patent expert and legal expert has written, “Apple sometimes engages in bullying, but the ITC’s attack is gratuitous, disingenuous and irresponsible,” noting the ITC’s own record shows that Apple created the disputed pulse oxymetry technology independently and that Masimo “tactically designed the patents-in-suit after Apple’s independent innovation, and more than 10 years after the original applications, in order to read on the relevant Apple Watch feature.”

I think Masimo should get 'rewarded' for the trouble they have caused themselves and their shareholders LOL. They have spent 100 million on this and they only make 120 million a year in profit!

I am not particularly sure on how Apple's implementation differs from Masimo's but the ban was only stayed because they disabled that feature. So, currently it seems that Apple did in fact 'copy' Masimo's tech.

I must disagree that Apple created that technology independently, considering they poached talent from Masimo and applied for patents the very same week that the new staff joined, you don't develop new tech that quickly.

Apple created the technology independently and it only has superficial similarities to Masimo’s patents. Superficial similarities is all you need to infringe a patent. 

In terms of actual technology, I doubt any data was shared, and no hardware details were copied. All you need to do figure this out is to read the patents. No technology is ever revealed in a patent. None.

I was frankly surprised Masimo’s patent had calibration data plots in it, but it is useless because it will be entirely dependent on the emitter-receptor configuration and body location. 

The benefits of hiring experts in the field is indeed to give your planned feature the best chance of success. It cuts in all ways. Those experts can design the feature so that they don’t infringe on patents. That’s a big part of any planned feature for company like Apple. 

I think you are spot on really. Hiring executives by 'poaching' using more pay, benefits ... does not incriminate any company. I don't think Apple is that stupid or arrogant to have taken trade secrets from the 2 that Apple hired. In fact given that the tech is now 80 years old, it baffles me how anyone has gotten a patent in this. However, the former Masimo executives would have know how strongly Masimo's patent position was, particularly with 'prior art'. Although the USPTO requires you to disclose any prior art that you become aware of, most companies keep a lid on such and disclose only if cited in court. Given that 13 Masimo patents have now been invalidated, and Apple is working on the remaining 2 that the ITC has focused on, it does not take much to connect the dots. I think Masimo may have created an unforced strategic error in going after Apple here. An error that could cost them their existing market leader place in hospital O2 saturation monitoring. There are many Chinese potential manufactures (who likely make Masimo's current devices) watching this space.

tech_traveller said:

I am glad. Whether you like or dislike Apple, medical devices should have some exception to other product categories.

That being said, I hope Masimo gets reimbursed for their troubles.