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.
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’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.
This is not a vote, these are facts you can check yourself:
Between 2006 and 2022: Massimo kept building a portfolio of “provisional filings”, without filing a final version that would get published
2022: Massimo launches its own watch, still without having filed for final patents
later in 2022: Apple announces a watch with similar functionality
shortly after Apple’s announcement: suddenly Massimo decides to file final versions of a slew of patents it had kept in the “provisional” stage for 15+ years
You’re missing the part where Apple initially wanted to partner with Masimo and when they refused, decided to poach several employees from Masimo to develop the competing product.
Masimo seems to have a legitimate case here, and Apple is definitely in the wrong, as they knowingly attempted to copy Masimo’s product. The late publication of the patents could be due to literally anything, but it doesn’t seem to be done willfully to ‘trap’ Apple into this lawsuit. Because of that, I’d argue that this is a bit of a fault in the broken patent system, but that Masimo is not deliberately patent trolling here.
If Masimo hadn’t finalized the patent, Apple would have filed it’s own similar one and the reverse would have happened. It was literally their only option when confronted with a tech giant who is notoriously litigious. If that happened, Apple would have shut down an actual medical device company through constant legal battles Masimo couldn’t afford to win.
This isn’t trolling because Masimo is actually using the patent and the patent is specific. Patent trolling is filing a bunch of broad patents and hoarding them, often with no intent to develop a product, for the express purpose of either filing law suits or to stifle competition. Apple is often considered a troll for that latter reason.
Masimo would likely allow Apple to license the patent. But Apple tried to bypass paying licensing fees entirely and it’s still doing so. Masimo was well within it’s rights to protect itself from Apple, though. Unfortunately, this is what a smaller company protecting itself from a larger one looks like in the US.
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.
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:
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’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.
This is not a vote, these are facts you can check yourself:
There is no counter-argument.
You’re missing the part where Apple initially wanted to partner with Masimo and when they refused, decided to poach several employees from Masimo to develop the competing product.
Masimo seems to have a legitimate case here, and Apple is definitely in the wrong, as they knowingly attempted to copy Masimo’s product. The late publication of the patents could be due to literally anything, but it doesn’t seem to be done willfully to ‘trap’ Apple into this lawsuit. Because of that, I’d argue that this is a bit of a fault in the broken patent system, but that Masimo is not deliberately patent trolling here.
If Masimo hadn’t finalized the patent, Apple would have filed it’s own similar one and the reverse would have happened. It was literally their only option when confronted with a tech giant who is notoriously litigious. If that happened, Apple would have shut down an actual medical device company through constant legal battles Masimo couldn’t afford to win.
This isn’t trolling because Masimo is actually using the patent and the patent is specific. Patent trolling is filing a bunch of broad patents and hoarding them, often with no intent to develop a product, for the express purpose of either filing law suits or to stifle competition. Apple is often considered a troll for that latter reason.
Masimo would likely allow Apple to license the patent. But Apple tried to bypass paying licensing fees entirely and it’s still doing so. Masimo was well within it’s rights to protect itself from Apple, though. Unfortunately, this is what a smaller company protecting itself from a larger one looks like in the US.