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Apple is officially no longer selling the newest Apple Watch in America

cnn.com

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Re: Apple is officially no longer selling the newest Apple Watch in America

#41

Post by mherdeg »

jmyeet wrote: post #28
sandworm101 wrote: post #3

Absolutely no sympathy. Those who live by the patent shall die by the patent.

When has Apple ever sued over patent infringement? There was the Samsung case [1] but that was a design issue. Apple, Google, Meta and other big tech companies have used patents defensively not offensively . That is, as mutually-assured destruction. The real villains in this story are the patent holding companies that sue in East Texas to get in front of one judge that, at a time, heard a quarter of all US patent cas…

Would you accept weaponized trademark infringement as a sibling to patent law? The behavior described here seems odd -- I wouldn't call it "good" or "bad" in a moral sense just technically impressive: https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2023/10/26/apples-trademark-ex... and https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/14/21436760/us-customs-state....

Re: Apple is officially no longer selling the newest Apple Watch in America

#42

Post by pclmulqdq »

bdowling wrote: post #37
hasty_pudding wrote: post #12

Why doesn't Apple enter into a deal with Masimo for a small percentage of the watch? Unless I missed it, the news article didn't go into more detail on why a deal couldn't be made.

That would be the obvious solution, but it’s not surprising they couldn’t agree on a price when they operate in very different industries. Masimo makes medical devices, ones whose prices are probably both high and skewed by insurance. Apple is a consumer devices company and may not be able to justify a high royalty price and still meet certain consumer price points. Another possibility is that Apple’s watches may be…

If Apple could destroy this company's business, it's a good thing they have a patent preventing that.

Re: Apple is officially no longer selling the newest Apple Watch in America

#43

Post by hnbad »

nickpp wrote: post #17
snarf21 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many problems with software patents and patents that are "_____ but on a phone/watch" but I'm curious of what your solution is? What is a better system?

Unencumbered free markets. Same system that got us the unimaginable (just a few generations ago) wealth we live in right now.

> us

Who's that? Last I checked the US has a sizeable homeless population, a vast amount of people in precarious working conditions and most Americans would be financially ruined by a single major accident or health issue. I don't think people "just a few generations ago" would consider them to have unimaginable wealth unless you want to focus on the reduced costs of consumer goods rather than access to food, shelter and social spaces.

Also patents already existed "a few generations ago". If you want to cut down on IP protections be my guest but framing that in the same language as cutting back on labor protections or social welfare seems a bit questionable. Especially if you're implying we had unencumbered free markets before and no longer do now but our supposed present wealth is owed to those free markets of the distant past not the "encumbrance" of the more recent past - sorry, you'll have to give a bit more of a timeline and explanation of cause and effect than just a snappy one-liner.

Re: Apple is officially no longer selling the newest Apple Watch in America

#44

Post by GeekyBear »

donkers wrote: post #21
patentatt wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this dubious. Google is not known for respecting privacy, and large corporations in general are not known for voluntarily passing on trillion dollar markets on moral grounds. Is there perhaps an alternative explanation that isn't as far fetched?

This has some context on Google’s exit from China. They refused to censor the search engine to China’s liking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#2010–2016:_Giving...

> They refused to censor the search engine to China’s liking.

Google had no problem with censoring the search results in China. They exited the country after it began hacking into their data centers.

> Since arriving here in 2006 under an arrangement with the government that purged its Chinese search results of banned topics, Google has come under fire for abetting a system that increasingly restricts what citizens can read online.

Google linked its decision to sophisticated cyberattacks on its computer systems that it suspected originated in China and that were aimed, at least in part, at the Gmail user accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/world/asia/13beijing.html

Re: Apple is officially no longer selling the newest Apple Watch in America

#45

Post by vasco »

jmyeet wrote: post #28
sandworm101 wrote: post #3

Absolutely no sympathy. Those who live by the patent shall die by the patent.

When has Apple ever sued over patent infringement? There was the Samsung case [1] but that was a design issue. Apple, Google, Meta and other big tech companies have used patents defensively not offensively . That is, as mutually-assured destruction. The real villains in this story are the patent holding companies that sue in East Texas to get in front of one judge that, at a time, heard a quarter of all US patent cas…

From the article we're commenting on:

> Masimo CEO Joe Kiani told CNN he believes Apple deliberately infringed on his company’s patents. But the companies have been at loggerheads for years. In October 2022, Apple filed two patent infringement lawsuits against Masimo.

Re: Apple is officially no longer selling the newest Apple Watch in America

#46

Post by seanmcdirmid »

serf wrote: post #35
thebruce87m wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the alternative? Not play the patent game and die by the patent anyway?

abiding by the laws and weaponizing the law for your own benefit are two different things.

Such companies probably exist, we just never hear about them because of survival bias.

Re: Apple is officially no longer selling the newest Apple Watch in America

#47

Post by ddxv »

fragmede wrote: post #4

I trust Apple's commitment to privacy as much as I do Google's, but when they both remove a product over a stupid patent rather than pay the patent holder (Sonos' sued Google with their multiroom audio patent), we can see that it's possible for corporations to hold principled views about things.

Apple's mobile "privacy" features are about monopolizing advertising on their mobile products so that Apple is now the number one iOS advertising company.

Re: Apple is officially no longer selling the newest Apple Watch in America

#48

Post by Moto7451 »

fragmede wrote: post #4

I trust Apple's commitment to privacy as much as I do Google's, but when they both remove a product over a stupid patent rather than pay the patent holder (Sonos' sued Google with their multiroom audio patent), we can see that it's possible for corporations to hold principled views about things.

Principled is defined as “acting with morality and showing recognition of right and wrong.”

How is abiding by the decision of a court not following a principled view? Wouldn’t going against the rule of law be non-principles behavior? Apple is not required to license the patent nor is the holder required to ever license their patent. They can tell Apple to go pound sand as this isn’t the seemingly typical cell phone FRAND dispute.

Trying to find a way to build an Apple Watch 9 that doesn’t infringe on a patent is a valid and principled way of behaving, even if it’s perhaps a bad business choice. If it takes them a week or two and stands in court it’ll be seen as a good decision. If they can’t and pony up anyway it’ll be seen as a poor choice of action. We’ll certainly know soon enough.

Re: Apple is officially no longer selling the newest Apple Watch in America

#49

Post by karaterobot »

JulianWasTaken wrote: post #30
dlenski wrote: post #9

BS patents are bad, and patents lasting 20+ years are bad, but if someone's gonna get maimed by them… I can hardly think of a more deserving victim than Apple.

Are you intimating Apple has been litigious with patents? Or just saying you have no sympathy for companies with lots of money? (This isn't a leading question, I have no informed opinion about Apple specifically.)

I can't answer about the intent of the person you responded to, but my reading was that they were commenting on Apple's history of patent lawsuits, both as a defendant and a plaintiff. Particularly the prolonged IP slapfights between Apple and pretty much every other mobile device company, aka the Smartphone Patent Wars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone_patent_wars

Re: Apple is officially no longer selling the newest Apple Watch in America

#50

Post by seanmcdirmid »

snotrockets wrote: post #23
rogerkirkness wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google doesn't do business in China because they won't agree to the privacy violating terms of doing so, that is at least a $1T principle if you compare it to the amount of hardware and services that Apple sells there.

Google’s executives would very much like to operate in China, only they faced public pressure (the term to search for is “project dragonfly”). I won’t be surprised if they’ll retry to enter China soon.

They faced internal pressure from employees as I remember it. They shutdown their Chinese sites after the PLA was caught hacking Gmail accounts in Hong Kong, but this was when Paige and Sergey were more involved (being from formerly authoritarian communist countries).
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