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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

#151

Post by peyton »

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…

Where are you getting your information? Doesn’t pass the smell test. Apple does tons of licensing deals—how could you run a vertically integrated company like theirs otherwise? A quick Google search suggests the working environment at Masimo is quite poor, so it makes sense employees might leave.

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

#152

Post by networkchad »

jrockway wrote: post #84
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.

This is a good thing. It increases salaries for everyone. If Apple can make more money with your ideas than Massimo, why shouldn't they be allowed to pay you more?

[dead]

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

#153

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

dijit wrote: post #117
orenlindsey wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple can't build a factory to produce Apple Watches before the entire situation would be resolved. And if they could, it would be much more expensive to run compared to making it in Vietnam (where they make it now). It would just be a stopgap solution.

I don't think anyone is seriously considering that, I think the broader point is that by outsourcing and being a tad greedy they have shot themselves in the foot inadvertently. Of course, they'll have run the numbers and the cost of this fiasco is likely many-many orders of magnitude below the savings from using cheap labour.

They didn't shoot themselves in the foot, by any measure. If the watches were made in the US, Apple could still be sued in federal court for patent infringement. Masimo likely just filed in the ITC because it (correctly) gave them the most leverage (a sales injunction) for the smallest possible legal cost. Apple is going to appeal, so it's still going to get sorted out in federal court in any case.

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

#154

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

mission_failed wrote: post #107
manderley wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that wouldn't vanish the patent issue?

It is wouldn't, but the ITC ruling is quicker to get than going to court for patent issues. Which is exactly why Apple uses import bans to screw with competitors importing headphones.

It's that really even that bad of a thing for Apple? The appeal will go to federal court, which means at the end of the day it's just going to get sorted out by the court system more quickly.

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

#155

Post by noirbot »

ajross wrote: post #150
noirbot wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 go…

It's not trickery, it's a question of what the law is. If you grab a random person off the street, even simple machines like gears and pulleys may not be obvious. On the other end, you risk running into the "it's an auction but on a computer" patents just because you happen to be the first person to bother paying to patent that you could do that with a computer.

There's a difference between novel and niche in my mind. If you're working for a company that's acquired a monopoly on having enough money to do any work at all on some product, simply because there's not enough demand for it to have active competition, that doesn't seem like it should mean that everything is "novel" just because you're the only group thinking about it. Yes, in this case Apple is the much bigger company deciding to get into the business, but these patents surely would likewise hinder other companies from competing, or even doing their own research into product innovations in this area, for fear of being too close to the existing patents.

Either way, my point was about hiring people, not the patents. Going "they poached all these people so they could steal their patented knowledge" may be true, but if that company is the only company doing any amount of real innovation in that field, you'd also want to hire from them just because you want to hire the best engineers who have experience with those sensors. Even if you were trying to avoid any issue with patent and totally build a unique product, you'd still want to start with people who know the problem space vs. re-training people.

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

#156

Post by kridsdale3 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #149
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.

I paid for it and I use it. It informs the VO2MAX graph in my database. That is very important to me.

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

#157

Post by AlbertCory »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #140
AlbertCory wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, there's no need to be all US-only. It's only the finished article that can't be imported.

They may find a way around this - I believe it was only required to do two "manipulations" to have a US-created good. Some people were getting around tariffs that way. Of course, a US court in West Texas could issue the same injunction as the ITC.

as I said, domestic injunctions are much less common.

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

#158

Post by ajross »

noirbot wrote: post #155
ajross wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 go…

It's not trickery, it's a question of what the law is. If you grab a random person off the street, even simple machines like gears and pulleys may not be obvious. On the other end, you risk running into the "it's an auction but on a computer " patents just because you happen to be the first person to bother paying to patent that you could do that with a computer. There's a difference between novel and niche in my min…

> Even if you were trying to avoid any issue with patent and totally build a unique product, you'd still want to start with people who know the problem space vs. re-training people.

Sorry, that's ridiculous. If you were genuinely trying to avoid IP pollution, hiring employees from existing market leaders is the worst possible strategy.

Again, people are twisting themselves around here. Apple got caught red handed here. Argue, if you must, that the patent is invalid from first principles and that any staff could have done it. But the fact that they went and hired all these folks to do it in the real world absolutely constitutes strong evidence to the contrary.

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

#159

Post by [deleted] »

az226 wrote: post #139
c0pium wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically yes, but that’s a bit like saying rocket engine patents are about the vector of hot gasses. There are a lot of issues with creating one chip that both emits and receives light which are not present in a transmission model. In particular, if you look at the actual claims in the case, this is what many of the areas which were infringed upon deal with.

I think that has to be decided by jury/judge.

[deleted]

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

#160

Post by mthoms »

sokoloff wrote: post #95
mthoms wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That not incongruent with a strategy to wait out a patent holder and thereby be known as a difficult target. For sure. But it does counter the suggestion you made that Massimo may have been "holding out" for more money. >Apple’s under no obligation to offer a settlement. Agreed. I never suggested otherwise.

Ah. In my mind “holding out” does not require a settlement offer to be proposed by the counterparty. If you ask the price to buy my 2005 Honda CRV (license my patent) and I tell you $250K ($250M/yr), many would think I was holding out even if you (Apple) correctly roll your eyes and don’t engage.

> If you ask the price

The point is… even that preliminary exchange of information never took place. Apple has not engaged whatsoever; There’s been no contact since the original meetings (2013 I think) where they discussed working together. Apple (allegedly) went dark very shortly after and started their own thing.

There would have to be some serious mental gymnastics going on to suggest Massimo was “holding out”.

To use your metaphor; If I’m selling my 1999 4Runner but no one ever approaches me to ask about details (ie price) it’d be very weird to suggest I was “holding out”.

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