tht
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US Apple Watch import ban is on hold, for now
Apple believes they don’t infringe the patents, and they need to prove to the Court that they don’t. Indeed, they basically won the court case it resulted in a mistrial due to a split decision. The court cases continues on whether they infringe or not, and whether the patents are valid or not.MplsP said:
See my comment above - If that's considered a valid reason then how could any patent cases be enforced at all? If "irreparable harm" = Lost sales then any patent enforcement at all means irreparable harm and should therefore have an injunction.radarthekat said:
If one customer decides to buy a cheaper Apple Watch because the one they wanted was banned, that could be considered irreparable harm. Because something was taken away that isn't going to be given back. I suppose some folks might imagine such a strong phrase must necessarily imply 'great harm' but irreparable has nothing to do with the amount of harm.MplsP said:I’m curious how Apple could claim irreparable harm when it sells other watches without the technology.
It just doesn't work like that. If company A develops and patents a product or technology they have the right to use and profit from that technology. Allowing other companies to violate patents just because they want the profitsu negates the use of the patent system.If Apple does prove they don’t infringe, or invalidates the patents, then the ITC ban is causing Apple harm. Therefore, the court can stay the ITC ban and have Masimo’s damages go into bond. All parties can be made whole when final determinations are made.The ITC is not a court. They are a US trade organization that can institute bans on imports. Their determination of patent infringement has no relation to the US court system that determines whether Apple infringes a patent or whether patents as valid.
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Japan plans to fine Apple over app stores and force sideloading
Heh: Nikkei Asia says it's the laws are expected to be applied to multinational firms, and not to Japanese ones.9secondkox2 said:The EU disease is infecting the planet.When Sony is forced to allow Apple and nintendo and microsoft to have their App Stores on PlayStation and tv sets, then we can talk.Such nonsense.
Sounds like you won’t be talking to them for a very long while, just like with how all these new EU laws just happen to exclude all EU companies.You know, 16 years ago, when everyone and their brother knew that Symbian needed to be rearchitected for the world that the iPhone introduced, the EU did squat? I honestly don’t remember. Everyone saw it coming. It was all-hands on deck for all competitors. It was not a time for the status quo of working. It was definitely hair on fire time.Nokia and company put together something like a 4 year plan to get Symbian^5 out the door, when it needed to be 1 year, 2 years at most. The EU should have put in time and money to get Symbian to be competitive. Instead, Nokia’s old platform was left to burn at sea, and they decided to let Microsoft buy and kill them. Infineon wasn’t subsidized so that they could continue developing cellular modems, and they let Intel buy them.
Nokia, Ericsson and Siemens had about 50% market share in mobile phones! It’s near zero now.Similar story with Japanese companies. Have to go re-read the business axioms on why incumbents can’t change even though they see the cliff coming.
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Apple appeals Apple Watch ban, citing 'irreparable harm' to its business
Apple believes their design doesn’t infringe on Maximo’s patents or the patents can be invalidated. If so, they wouldn’t be negotiating for patent licensing with Masimo.MplsP said:
You're right about the term being 'legal speak' hyperbole but as others have said, it begs the question. If an Apple Watch ban is truly so damaging, why didn't they start negotiating with Massimo earlier?inkling said:LIke a lot of things lawyers say, "irreparable harm" means little. It's just a verbal button pushed to push for a court response. The royalties that Apple may end up paying Masimo probably amount to only a fraction of one percent of its annual profits. It's Apple that's putting a big dent in its watch sales by refusing to settle and pay.The ITC design is an import ban based on their interpretation of the 5 patents asserted by Masimo.There is a separate, and earlier, set of court cases that deal directly with whether Apple infringes on Masimo’s patent and a patent appeals board trial on whether the patents are valid.
The latter resulted in a mistrial when the jury trial resulted in a 6-1 jury vote in favor of Apple when it needed to be unanimous and the patent appeals trials seems to be waiting the ITC trial to wind down before it starts up again.
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Apple's in-house Wi-Fi chips probably won't make it into the iPhone 17
No, you are thinking about this in the wrong time frame.StrangeDays said:
By that logic the M1 should have aimed for crummy Intel performance rather than kickass with the M1. Hmmm.tht said:These wireless network chip rumors suggests Apple is taking the wrong development track, and something they normally don’t do, or anyone in project management would do.Just all kinds of strange.They should not be designing and making chips for their top end products first, but for their low end products first. If they are making a WiFi chip, it should be a WiFi 6 chip, not a 6E nor 7, and put it into Mac minis, Apple TVs, MacBook Airs, etc.
If they are making a cellular modem, it should just be a plain 5G modem that can go into Macs, iPads and low end iPhones.It’s hugely important to ship, refine designs, and ship. It just is strange to hear they want to be first out of the gate with leading edge modems and WiFi chips. Tough to believe that is the plan.Would love to hear the story on this. It could just be not willing to pay for the patents, Broadcom and Qualcomm offering better deals versus paying for the patents, designing around patents has been difficult, to just bad management.The first Apple silicon chip was the A4 in 2010, which was a plain design using CPU cores designed by ARMH. It was basically a selection on existing ASICs from various vendors.Their second Apple silicon chip was the A5, a dual core design using ARMH cores.Their first custom designed Apple silicon was in the A6 SoC, which had an Apple designed dual core 32 bit CPU. After that, it was the A7, an SoC with a custom designed dual core 64 bit CPU.Their first iPad specific design was the A5X, where they increased the GPU and memory performance over the A5. The continued to refine it with the A6X, A8X, A9X, A10X, A12X.
They continued to refine both to this day, where the GPU went from PowerVR to their own custom designs. They added motion and NPU coprocessors, Secure Enclaves, so on and so forth.The M1 is a A13X or A14X chip, branded as M1 for the Macs, with refinements suited for lower end Macs. The M1 ships in iPad Air, serving the same role the AnX SoCs did for 6 generations, built off the success of shipping those SoCs for that long.The M Pro/Max/Ultra SoCs are all refinements that have their roots in the iPhone SoCs, just more of everything.So, Apple indeed started small and unassuming with Apple silicon. The M1 had a history of about 6 SoCs before it, slowly being refined and shipped.Apple knows how to do project management. It is strange to hear the rumor that they want to be leading edge out the gate. I can understand the iPhone SE as a good target for the cellular modem per earlier rumors. If they are finding that hard, they need to target iPads with cellular or laptops. Same kind of thought for WiFi chips.And like I said, the rumor is probably not revealing the complete story here.
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Masimo open to an Apple Watch settlement, if Apple would only call
The ITC doesn't invalidate patents. They just interpret, as I recall.FileMakerFeller said:
If Apple thought the patents were worthless they would have tried to have them formally invalidated by the ITC - unless perhaps they thought it unlikely that they'd need to? Regardless, with the court case dragging on this long and the patents not invalidated and now the ITC investigation finding the claims to be violated... Apple's on the losing end of this one.tht said:
Obviously not ok with that. Just want people to do the right thing so that everyone benefits.mikethemartian said:
You must be OK when people squat on other people’s land.tht said:
They are a patent troll. It's not mutually exclusive to have products while also being a patent troll. It's the way the game is often played as this is the way the USA gov't wants it, so companies play the game. Some are aggressive, some are not. It ebbs and flows.macbootx said:Looking at the line of sensor related products they sell, Masimo certainly doesn’t appear to be a patent troll. Hopefully Apple will negotiate a fair deal.
The ITC "determined" that Apple violated 2 claims of 1 patent granted 2021, which was the year after Apple introduced the Apple Watch 6. Those claims should be invalidated and I definitely can see why Apple isn't going to settle, for now. But play the game they must.
It's not hard to say that these aren't actually patents as we envision patents to be, where an actual design or product is protected. The patents are written in vague language for the express purpose of suing other entities that have anything resembling a blood oxygen device. There isn't any actual design or product in these patents.
The language in the claims are like a "a worn device with at least 2 LEDs". To me, that should be an automatic invalidation for being too vague as they are trying to patent an idea and not an actual product. There's not a product there. No actual implementation of a blood oxygen measurement device. If it was, they would say precisely how many lights, what wavelengths, what power levels, what materials, and what calibrations they need to make it work.
These patents hold no engineering value, and if a company wanted to make a blood oxygen sensing device, they would have to develop the product from scratch. How could something be stolen, if so?
There is a separate patent court case between them where Apple is trying invalidate the patents in those suits. Masimo went the ITC route to put additional pressure on Apple to try get them to deal, instead of waiting on the original patent suit to play out. I do not know if they are the same patents. Apple has countersued after Masimo shipped a wrist watch. The Masimo case in CA and the Apple countersuit in Delaware have been paused pending the ITC case. Maybe because those courts are just waiting on whether Apple and Masimo would settle.
The ITC is ultimately a political move if they don't have any authority to invalidate patents. Especially with Masimo vs Apple as they didn't have products that competed against each other at the time of the suit, and you could continue to argue that Apple and Masimo don't have competing products even with Masimo's watch on the market. There just won't be enough cross shoppers to merit action. In other words, Masimo will sell the same number of units whether the Apple Watch has blood oxygen measurements or not.
If the patents aren't invalidated, I think Apple's only move is to turn off the blood oxygen measurement on current units or only use one LED light for blood oxygen measurements, and redesign the LED or emitters such that it doesn't violate these patent claims in new units. Like have a 4 LED sensor cluster as seen in the back cam flash light or on my Series 4 Watch. The courts will then surely have to figure out what it means to have one, two or more LEDs, but if it a cluster of LEDs that share the same housing and cover, I think it is enough.
