Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC in a statement shared on live television that Apple has no intention to license Masimo’s patents. While it seemed likely that was the case, the company hadn’t said as much publicly until now.
“We’re focused on appeal,” Cook’s statement said. “There’s lots of reasons to buy the watch even without the blood oxygen sensor.”
No surprise here. Apple’s position, which I expect they’ll likely eventually prevail on, is that none of Masimo’s relevant patents are valid and they should have never been issued. Why pay money to license an invalid patent?
I don’t really know any of the intricacies, can you elaborate on why they are not valid?
The short version is that a lot of patents were issued in the 90s and early 2000s for “inventions” that actually already existed “but on a computer!” After a lot of legal wrangling the standards got stricter and these never-should-have-been issued patents have been systematically invalidated, though it’s a one-at-a-time process. I think Masimo originally claimed infringement of a dozen patents. From memory, it’s now down to two patents that have not been entirely invalidated, and I think even those have already been carved down to remove most of the claims. So basically there are two half-patents left to litigate and Apple thinks they can finish those off as well.
Sure, Masimo filed a bunch of invalid patents… but the two that held up seem pretty valid to me.
They’re not “the same thing but on a computer!”. They are “the same thing but you don’t have to stick a needle in someone, fill a vial with their blood, send the blood off to a laboratory, and wait for them to send you the results”. Real time non-invasive chemical analysis of blood is a genuine invention and Masimo has been leading the world in that for a long time.
I hate patents. I think the world would be a better place without them… but like it or not they exist. And Apple owns a lot of them… so I’m not going to be sympathetic in the slightest when they find themselves on the wrong end of a patent lawsuit.
Apple is more than happy to leverage such patents when it sees fit. They’re just throwing a tantrum because they finally ran into a small corporation that they couldn’t intimidate.
It’s not invalid yet though. As of right now they’re in violation, and they went so far as to hire away Masimo engineers to make them work on a competing product. If you want the tech that badly why NOT license it?
If you want the tech that badly why NOT license it?
Because they don’t think the patent is actually valid. Getting it officially invalidated is a process but if it really should have never been issued in the first place, then Apple is not truly infringing it and has no obligation to pay a cent to anybody else for it.
Don’t have to license a patent if your worst case scenario is you just buy the company.
I actually don’t think you are too far off. About a week ago i read about Masimo unavailing their watch for $999. Not many people will buy a watch for that much even with a blood ox system in it.
I think Apple will wait a year or two for them to “fail” by not succeeding like the investors want and then offer to purchase the company. A super low ball price and then just keep moving on with their plans.
“”There’s lots of reasons to buy the watch even without the blood oxygen sensor””.
I’m sorry but that was the entire reason I was going to trade-in my series 4 for a newer one. So I guess my series 4 that barely last 20hrs will continue to live on my nightstand. I would wear a normal watch if my health wasn’t garbage or if I could ever feel my phone vibrate when it is in my pocket.
I’ve found the blood oxygen feature on the Apple Watch to be worthless. The error bars on its measurements must be massive, so I would get numerous measurements every day down in the 80s. Better, finger-tip-based hardware measurements taken at the same time were never below 96%. And I’m careful about wearing the Watch just the way Apple recommends. I ended up just turning the feature off entirely, because I don’t want junk data in my Health history. I actually agree with Masimo’s CEO, who said, “I really feel wholeheartedly that consumers are better off without it."
I’m sure Masimo will offer a watch with a blood oxygen measurement tool built in. You can just buy that one.
Does anyone know if the blood oxygen sensor in ultra watch 2 is used for measuring VO2 max?
I got the ultra 2 because I’m training for ultramarathons and I kind of like to keep track of this as I progress/age.
I believe even the original Apple watch could do VO2 max, so no it shouldn’t.
lol
They’re so up their own ass and stubborn about some things.
