As much as I hate awfully broad patents, if the shoe was on the other foot, Apple would unleash its army of lawyers to block the other company’s sales.
Apple has done this many times before. Over even more frivolous patents (i.e. a glossy black rectangle)
They made their bed, now they have to lie in it
In this case, it doesn’t seem like the patents are “awfully broad”. Masimo is actively selling products using the patents, and it seems likely that Apple stole their technology.
From the Apple claims:
Masimo waited over a decade after it filed its original provisional applications, only to file the new applications that became the supposedly infringed patents just a week after Apple launched the first of the accused Apple Watch products.
Sounds to me like that should be illegal, no matter who does it.
Well if it was their IP, and they had it in a product, it’s theirs. They registered it over 10 years ago. Did Apple just magically come up with the same idea, or did they see and copy it?
A patent troll usually sits on patents they don’t use. This is a legitimate company with products. A small guy that cannot afford to file paperwork for all their stuff immediately shouldn’t be penalised.
One thing that is weird is that apple always has a lot of people ready to defend the big multi-billion dollar corp.
Additionally, the claimed infringement relates to the fact that it’s reflective pulse oximetry using three or more sensors. Your Garmin and old Apple watch aren’t infringing because they use two sensors. I think the patent in its current state should not have been granted. It would be like patenting the placement of three or more CPU sockets on motherboards that fit in a certain rack size.
I used to be a patent examiner and provisional applications were filed to secure a “prior art date” before everything is finalized, and when I was there had to be followed up within a year with a regular application and only the processes described in the provisional get the provisional date.
You could file a new application in addition to older ones to add processes but the new added stuff gets the new filing date while the already described stuff gets the older date.
And it regularly took 2-3 years for an application to become a patent, and that was a relatively quick one without much back and forth, our backlog to even first look at an application was 18months. I was working on applications that had been ongoing for 5+ years after first being picked up by an examiner. It’s not important when the application became a patent, it’s important when it was filed and what it contained.
I haven’t looked at the specifics in this case (I really don’t miss being an examiner), but patent filing date and prior art dates are complicated and of course apple is going to try and make it sound like they didn’t infringe and masimo is going to try to make it sound like they did. Apple playing games with wording and product release dates is not really relevant. If apple developed the technology they can show their notes and get a prior art date before the masimo provisional application, because it didn’t just show up in their watch the day it was released.
our backlog to even first look at an application was 18months. I was working on applications that had been ongoing for 5+ years after first being picked up
That’s insane 😲
I mean, it’s already iffy to assume than “only one person can come up with a given idea at a time”, it gets worse when “whichever gets to patent first is the only possible inventor”, but waiting 5 or 15 years after the fact just to be granted a monopoly on the invention… is insane.
It’s not important when the application became a patent, it’s important when it was filed and what it contained
Maybe I’m missing something, but how can anyone be accused of copying a patented work, if they announce or release their product before a patent gets published?
Sure, they probably should have filed an application themselves, but if the backlog to even look at an application is 18 months, then what happens of person A files an application, then 12 months later person B files a similar application, and they just sit there? Should person B wait until their application gets processed (positively or negatively), before announcing or releasing anything? What about products released with a “Patent pending” notice, are they just a gamble?
What I seem to understand for this case, is that Masimo has been filing multiple provisionals for different patents over 15 years, they may have approached Apple to license some of them, then when Apple announced their own product, Masimo hurried up to fix the wording on a bunch of the provisionals to match Apple’s product, and filed them as finals.
From an external point of view, what I see is the publication of a product using non-patented technology that should be considered prior art and render all those patents invalid.
It pleases me when the law actually protects a smaller company that had its tech stolen by a corporate giant.
Looks like a patent troll, though.
Apple is a patent troll so it serves them right. They think they can patent rounded rectangle, lol
https://www.masimopersonalhealth.com/products/masimo-w1
Looks like they’ve been selling this since November 9th 2022 at the latest.
The trolling comes from stuff like this:
“Non-invasive physiological sensor cover”
US US11779247B2 Abraham Mazda Kiani Masimo Corporation- Priority 2009-07-29
- Filed 2022-12-20
- Granted 2023-10-10
- Published 2023-10-10
They were fine with selling their own watch in a “patent pending” state over 10 years after having filed a provisional application, but the moment Apple announced their own watch, they hurried to write a final application after the fact worded in a way that would make Apple infringe on it thanks to having a 10+ year old priority on it.
They’ve been pulling the same stunt a bunch of times:
https://patents.google.com/?assignee=Masimo&oq=Masimo&sort=new
Several 2023 patents, have a priority as far back as 2006!
Why does this constitute trolling, though? That means they actually did invent and produce the tech for that whole period, doesn’t it? I could understand filling a provisional patent and then only pulling the trigger on the whole shebang when you actually have to protect it.
It doesn’t, you’re 100% correct. Apple fanboys gonna fanboy.
Also this whole thing is stupid. Apple literally refused to come to an agreement for the patent and was literally hinging its hopes on the Biden administration blocking the injunction, which made sense when it was a US company vs a non-US company, but of course doesn’t make sense when it’s two US companies. Apple probably could have bought out the entire company for less money than these 10 years of court cases cost but they thought they could bully the little guy with their market position.
Apple fanboys gonna fanboy.
I will kindly ask you to retract that insult. I have never owned, paid for, rented, or otherwise let any Apple products into my life, don’t own any AAPL, and definitely are not a fan of Apple’s shenanigans.
these 10 years of court cases
What are you talking about?
Okay so it wasn’t 10 years of court cases (this is what they said on the Vergecast but that apparently was incorrect) however the saga HAS been going on for 10 years:
This particular story started about 10 years ago when Apple reached out to Masimo about a potential partnership around blood oxygen features on its wearables. Soon after, Apple reportedly poached several Masimo engineers and its chief medical officer.
So 10 years ago, Apple reached out to Masimo about the technology, didn’t license it, proceeded to hire several of their engineers and its Chief Medical Officer, and then used the technology anyway after not licensing it and clearly poaching their engineers and CMO for the purposes of copying Masimo’s IP. And that’s what was proven in this court case, that Apple has been infringing on Massimo’s patents because of these facts.
I will kindly ask you to retract that insult.
I’ll retract that “insult” when you explain why you’re still defending apple after several people have responded to you with objective information that this is not a patent trolling case and that Massimo was using the technology but you’re still defending Apple while having no counter-argument to the fact that it’s clearly not a patent trolling situation.
Poor Apple… if only the most valuable company on the planet could afford to pay the patent-holders their fair share… but money is tight. They only made $99.8 billion dollars in profit last year.
Someone at Apple’s legal dept is gonna have a bad day
