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US ban on some Apple Watch sales now in effect

arstechnica.com

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Re: US ban on some Apple Watch sales now in effect

#141

Post by AlbertCory »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #89

I've seen tons of articles/posts about this recently, but does anyone have any links to any good articles that describe the patent(s) in question, and what the arguments are about (a) whether this patent is truly novel (I've heard tons of "pulse oximetry is decades old" arguments, but nothing about the specifics of these patents) and (b) whether Apple is or isn't infringing on the specific details? I'm sure this kind…

What you think you want is the "patent prosecution history." I say "think" because it's kinda "all hope abandon, ye who enter here." Go to uspto.gov and prepare to be perplexed.

You can be sure the issues of novelty and non-obviousness were argued there. Does that mean they'll be clear to you? Heh.

Pro tip: the history is in reverse chronological order. Any doc that's only one page, you can probably ignore. All the arguments are in multi-page PDF's.

Re: US ban on some Apple Watch sales now in effect

#143

Post by raydev »

midtake wrote: post #98
jusonchan81 wrote: post #48

Is there a chance Apple will pay Masimo for the technology and resume sales? I am curious why that didn’t happen. If this is an exec’s decision and this leads to bigger losses than paying Masimo, I wonder what would happen the people involved in the decisions.

Is it worth the long term increase in cost if Apple pays Masimo? It's not a one off where you just pay up to continue operations. Pay one and many more will line up. I am sure Apple's analysts already have a number for how much profit they'd slough off if they pay off Masimo and many more follow.

> I am sure Apple's analysts already have a number for how much profit they'd slough off if they pay off Masimo

Apple famously does not budge on their margins. If forced to pay a license fee, prices on these models will absolutely go up. Sale stoppage + this news cycle allows them to reset pricing when they start up again, without making consumers too mad.

Re: US ban on some Apple Watch sales now in effect

#144

Post by pclmulqdq »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #110
edm0nd wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also happening because after some failed negotiations Apple just straight up started poaching employee talent from Massimo.

That' not the complete story. Apple basically screwed Massimo in getting Massimo to spill their guts on their sensor tech promising them an licesing/partnership and instead of following through, they decided to cease any licensing deal and instead poach the team to build that tech inhouse instead of licensing it. It's known in SV as "brain fucking". A lot of big companies do this to small companies where they promise…

Since most SV startups don't like to patent things (and very few do anything actually patentable), it works. When you run into a case like this, it makes it very hard to say that you didn't infringe their patents.

Re: US ban on some Apple Watch sales now in effect

#145

Post by AlbertCory »

csense wrote: post #132
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That' not the complete story. Apple basically screwed Massimo in getting Massimo to spill their guts on their sensor tech promising them an licesing/partnership and instead of following through, they decided to cease any licensing deal and instead poach the team to build that tech inhouse instead of licensing it. It's known in SV as "brain fucking". A lot of big companies do this to small companies where they promise…

This seems like a huge problem for startups. Like, the whole point of a startup is (often) to get bought by a big player. But what if the big players learn all they can from due diligence presentations, then poach your tech and talent, and when you complain, it turns into a drawn-out court battle they win because they can afford $billions in legal fees but you can only afford $10's or $100's of millions? Is there a c…

Apple learned the game from Microsoft, who probably learned from someone else. MS was famous for just stealing any technology they wanted.

Re: US ban on some Apple Watch sales now in effect

#146

Post by AlbertCory »

Moto7451 wrote: post #21
imjustforyou wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patent laws really are so strange. Two people had an idea in 1989 (over a decade before I was born) and as a result, I am not allowed to build a product using that idea and sell it, even if I independently reached the idea myself. I think in an ideal world, we would have intellectual rights and patents, but for a vastly reduced scope of time. You come up with an amazing breakthrough that will alter the world? Congrat…

> You come up with an amazing breakthrough that will alter the world? Congratulations, it's yours for 10 years to do what you want. After that, it's fair game. Innovate or die. That’s how patents work in the US. You get 10 years with the ability to extend 10 more. There are games to be played with some patents that extend their life (like a new use patent in pharma) but generally these parents for seemingly old thing…

it's 20 years from the filing data. Issuing the patent takes 4-6 years, usually, so you're talking about ~14 years life.

Re: US ban on some Apple Watch sales now in effect

#147

Post by pclmulqdq »

solardev wrote: post #43
imjustforyou wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patent laws really are so strange. Two people had an idea in 1989 (over a decade before I was born) and as a result, I am not allowed to build a product using that idea and sell it, even if I independently reached the idea myself. I think in an ideal world, we would have intellectual rights and patents, but for a vastly reduced scope of time. You come up with an amazing breakthrough that will alter the world? Congrat…

You think that's weird, try drawing three circles that vaguely look like a mouse and building a multibillion century-long empire off it.

That's copyright. Copyrights are life plus 70 years. Patents cap out at 20.

The parent comment was wrong: a 1989 idea would basically not be under patent past about 2011.

Re: US ban on some Apple Watch sales now in effect

#148

Post by yunohn »

Tiereven wrote: post #67
peyton wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you getting this information? The consumer business is ultimately a threat to Masimo. Did they have any intention of commercializing these patents? Why did so many employees leave?

Their existing product line is marketed on their patent background [^1]. The questions you're asking seem to resonate with a certain skepticism I have observed repeatedly in related situations. This is why I am wondering if anyone is seriously considering alternative models. It seems someone in this audience is likely to know of such a proposal if any exists. [^1] https://www.masimopersonalhealth.com/products/masimo-…

> if anyone is seriously considering alternative models

That’s for Apple to ponder and decide how to proceed. They seem to believe there’s no alternative yet.

Re: US ban on some Apple Watch sales now in effect

#149

Post by ramraj07 »

bhartzer wrote: post #138

I'm wearing a Series 9 right now. What are the chances that they have to 'turn off' or 'disable' the pulse oximetry function? I haven't heard that mentioned--or if it was I missed it.

The real question is if you’ll miss that feature. It’s one of the most useless things they added to the watch just because they had nothing else they could. This and the wash your hands reminder lol.

Re: US ban on some Apple Watch sales now in effect

#150

Post by ajross »

noirbot wrote: post #115
ajross wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems a pretty thin argument. Hiring some people who already successfully did it has a higher chance of success than hiring randos, even if they have to do a clean-room re-implementation. That's... literally the argument. If the patent was obvious to a practitioner in the field, you wouldn't need to hire experts. And not just any experts, experts from the company that holds the patent in question! Honestly thi…

Isn't the question what the "field" is? Does it have to be obvious to a random college grad in Electrical Engineering? Biomed Engineering? Someone who's worked in Medical devices before? Someone who's worked on any other Pulse/Ox before? I can very easily see a case where it's obvious to anyone who's worked on this sort of device before, but only 1-2 companies make that sort of device, so if you want to hire someone…

> I can very easily see a case where it's obvious to anyone who's worked on this sort of device before, but only 1-2 companies make that sort of device

You don't win legal cases by resorting to semantic trickery. Clearly the spirit of the law is that "obviousness" should be interpreted generally. If you have some layer of minutiae only understood at an implementation level by a few dozen human beings, it's clearly going to look "novel" to everyone else.

Otherwise everyone in a patent case would throw some obscure genius on the stand to testify "Well, you see, this is totally obvious to me!" and win.

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