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.”
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.
I wish to play devil’s advocate for patents. But I first would like to note we need to set aside lawyers, corrupt judges, and anything else surrounding patents.
Patents were made to help the little guy out. They provide a way for someone to come up with a unique idea and protect it from larger entities that could pay to replicate manufacturing cheaply and destroy the little guy before he can make his first sale. Patents provide indisputable proof that someone had the idea first and has the right to make a living off their idea. Ergo, the American dream.
Now to jump back to reality; this entire, wonderful, system that was built to protect the American dream has been ruined by the same thing that ruins society and has pushed all of us into a late-stage capitalistic hellscape… greed.
I don’t wish to accuse Masimo or Apple of being greedy. That is a slippery slope I don’t want to visit right now. But patents are a good idea that have been taken and manipulated to protect a few pocket books.
I’m not qualified to say either way but Apple’s $1000+/hour patent attorneys clearly don’t think the patents are valid and they’ve already shot down most of the rest. And Apple is so confident that they’ll win that they’re willing to pause sales and even (temporarily) disable a marquee selling point. Apple doesn’t need to be right on this and yet is confident that they are. For Masimo this is an existential question so they can’t not fight, even if they thought they had a weak case.
So based on all of that, I think Apple will prevail.
That’s very interesting! Thanks!
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.
I don’t see how intimidation has anything to do with it. If you think the patent is BS and you have the financial resources to actually fight it, it’s good to fight it. It’s better for everyone when patents that shouldn’t have been issued are invalidated.
If you don’t think intimidation has anything to do with it, then you haven’t read anything about this or similar incidents and really shouldn’t be discussing the topic. Apple has a long history of leveraging soft and hard power, economic and otherwise, to force and coerce smaller players into one-sided deals or else. Apple is pissed here because it’s usage of the power dynamic failed to extort everything it wanted from Mossimo.
I wouldn’t really bucket masimo into the little guy” team- from my time in healthcare, they are really not an ethical company due to their aggressively high pricing on simple products only they produce, stifling competition through artificial lockouts and patent trolling.
They are absolutely a “little guy” when Apple calls on the phone. And it is a gross mischaracterization to describe them as a “patent troll.” They do not collect patents for pure litigation purposes nor do the seek to use litigation to extort under the color of law for patents they do not use or plan to use.
To be clear, no one who lives in this space is a good actor with completely clean hands; however, it’s just not true to paint Masimo in this light.