Apple has a history of stealing timepiece technology: https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/apple-accused-of-rip...
They also have a decades long history of copying successful shareware apps, integrating the functionality into the OS.
Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week
301–310 of 510 posts
Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple has an aggressive legal strategy because they can afford to bend/break the law first and let things play out in court (this case was first filed in early 2020 before the pandemic) while their competitors generally cannot.
Case in point: reaching out to the President of the United States to intervene. Crazy.
Or leasing a new Mercedes every few months so that you never have to have a license plate and register your car like the rest of us plebians...and can illegally park in handicapped parking spaces because cops can't issue a ticket to a vehicle with no plate.
Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week
#303a plurality of emitters configured to emit light, each of the emitters comprising at least two light emitting diodes (LEDs); four photodiodes arranged within the user-worn device and configured to receive light after at least a portion of the light has been attenuated by tissue of the user; a protrusion comprising a convex surface including separate openings extending through the protrusion and lined with opaque mate…
Being granted the patent means almost nothing. The only thing that matters is if you can defend it. Which ridiculously I agree, they seem to have been able to do.
Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
My snark is mostly directed at people who lament the patent system as precluding innovation wherein it actually does the opposite by forcing public disclosure and precluding the use of trade secrets to protect such information indefinitely.
Is it useful to challenge you to look at one of these patents and actually try to build the thing ? They don't even specify the wavelength of LEDs you should use, instead preferring to claim all imaginable wavelengths. They describe (and claim) what are very complicated digital signal processing algorithms in a few highly opaque paragraphs. Sorry, nothing was forcibly publicly disclosed here. These guys got patent pr…
>Is it useful to challenge you to look at one of these patents and actually try to build the thing?
I don't particularly think so. Patents are meant for a person of "ordinary skill" in the art. I don't make these devices. I'm not a person equipped to offer an opinion on whether the patent discloses sufficient information.
>Sorry, nothing was forcibly publicly disclosed here. These guys got patent protection, the public got nothing.
The way the invention works is what is disclosed. Patents aren't blueprints. It's even more ridiculous that you are making this comment when Apple seems to have infringed.
Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It would be nice if we could also file: this thing I figured out is not novel and is a natural progression to the current state-of-the-art. isn't this just publishing? no formal procedure required, no government, no patent office, no filing fees, put your a record of your work somewhere that people can find it and then it can be used as prior art in a dispute.
I think they were asking for something like Creative Commons for patents. Prior to CC anyone could write a note that says “free to use” but then you would need a lawyer to do due diligence and scan each with a fine toothed comb. The value of CC is it normalized all of that so the economy around using the free thing got easier. Yes publishing work will allow you to bring it up as a defendant. But by the time you’re ca…
If you are actually sued for patent infringement, then it means you've got deep pockets to pay a judgment or settlement. In other words, you're probably making a ton of money. It's a good position to be in.
Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I have no doubt we will see them attempting to aggressively exercise these in future years to shut down alternatives to Vision Pro in the future. Do you have examples where apple has aggressively used patents offensively like this?
the classic quote from Jobs comes to mind: > "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this" And they did (try), although by proxy through Samsung.
This does not answers OPs question about examples where Apple has aggressively exercised patents
Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week
#307Intellectual property purports to foster innovation and reward idea-havers. It does the opposite, stifling innovation and rewarding rent seekers over tinkerers.
See case study of a notable IP monopoly, Watt's steam engine: https://fee.org/media/5345/122008freeman-boldrin.pdf
Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s so wild that a patent owner is allowed to refuse to sell a license to use the patented technology.
Mandatory licensing would be wild. If LG invent something that makes TVs better should they have to licence it to Samsung? Or should they just be able to make better TVs and use their invention for market differentiation?
Being required to conduct good-faith negotiation sounds like a great idea, a reasonable tradeoff between protection that encourages innovation so that inventors can profit off their inventions, while also allowing for society to progress based on those inventions.
LG could ignore trolls and morons - but if Samsung makes a good-faith, fair offer to license the technology, they should have to have a good reason for saying no beyond "we don't feel like it."
One company, Cobasys (owned by an oil company!) purposefully refused to license NiMH technology in transportation. The patent system was never intended to be used like a weapon to protect a market.
Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week
#309This seems like a problematic patent based on two of the doctrines, both of which the courts have largely abandoned. Firstly, it’s patently obvious. The pulse ox technology in a transmissive mode is very old, and so is HRM in a reflective mode, and the only difference is in the subtleties of the engineering, none of which is reflected in the patent nor the claims. The second reason, relatedly, is the requirement for…
I think the key here (similar to what happened to Blackberry-RIM which was sued by NTP) is that the ITC has stepped in before other courts or the Patent Office have had their final say. The argument being that Masimo would be harmed by the importation, while the ban will cost Apple $Billions. Rocket-dockets and the ITC are useful tools if you're the plaintiff in getting a big settlement.
NTP had it's patents invalidated shortly after RIM settled for most of a $B, but it didn't matter since BB couldn't afford to have their email servers turned off. Apple probably can afford this. I'm not sure if the patents are in reexam or not, but I'd expect them to be.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2562540/update--rim-se...
Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure but on the other hand as someone with a pretty recent Apple Watch on my wrist I am very happy whenever Apple suffers a loss and loses money.
"I am very happy whenever Apple suffers a loss and loses money" That is a bizarre take.
You can't pretend that Apple doesn't set themselves up for the criticism. They're the largest company globally, completely control all major facets of their devices and struggle to admit to adamant and obvious design failure (eg. Butterfly Keyboard, anti-repair DRM, single-vendor App Store, browser lockdown, etc.).
When Apple is wrong, fixing the problem yourself isn't always an option. Reactions like this shouldn't surprise you if you've seen what HN has to say about Meta, Microsoft and Google.