Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week

#491

Post by caminante » Wed, Dec 20, 2023, 6:01 PM UTC

mort96 wrote: post #395

caminante wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the post above is somewhat accurate, in that there is no guarantee that negotiations will end in a license. Why is that revelation "wild?" Imagine saying, > It’s so wild that [Bernie] is allowed to refuse to [allow Bob] to [rent Bernie's spare bedroom]. putting aside the fact that [Bob] doesn't even want to rent from [Bernie] as applied to the situation here with the watches! :-)

The patent isn't personal property that the company "owns" like how a person owns a house, it's a segment of the market where the government grants a company a legal monopoly. I don't understand why it should be a total legal monopoly. If the idea was that the company which employed the people who invented something cool should "deserve" to get filthy rich (why do we want that again?), you'd think that could be achie…

> I don't understand why it should be a total legal monopoly...

You're asking philosophical questions about the patent system. I'm not defending the patent system and IANAL.

I recommend the wiki article to get an overview [0]. Your phrasing doesn't align with my understanding of patent law or the article's characterization of the situation.

> The patent isn't personal property that the company "owns" like how a person owns a house...

> But instead we apparently want to say, "no other company should be allowed to make a watch with a pulse oximeter for 20 years unless the company which employed the inventor agrees to it".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent#Effects

Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week

#492

Post by dwaite » Wed, Dec 20, 2023, 6:12 PM UTC

rickdeckard wrote: post #481

pests wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the patent infringement, I see no issue with them hiring key employees and trying to recreate the technology. If Apple, or some other company, approached you to rebuild what you built at your current company, for a lot more money - are you really telling me you're going to say no and that's the moral thing to do? Why are you trying to protect a company, a fictional entity, over the employees that make it up?

> Besides the patent infringement (..) You exclude the only topic in discussion here. Noone is framing this as an issue of individual employees. It's an issue between two companies, and one of them has a very thin argument to claim that it didn't systematically extract the other one's IP without paying for it. As mentioned elsewhere: This strategy surely works most of the time, especially on smaller companies unable…

> You exclude the only topic in discussion here.

Then why are we (as a group) talking about prior meetings, or employees getting hired?

Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week

#493

Post by dwaite » Wed, Dec 20, 2023, 6:15 PM UTC

dghughes wrote: post #484

caslon wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies aren't people, and it's embarrassing that society's first response to a corporate dispute is to anthropomorphize them.

It's a metaphor. But living beings aka people do operate the company and make the decisions.

Right, but the anthropomorphizing of that collection of people is in this case counter to the individual people themselves - the employees were not victims of human trafficking, they left for presumably better job offers or to work on something they thought would be more interesting.

It also ignores that the Apple employees hired may not have even contributed to the Watch feature in question, because surely all of Apple works on everything Apple does.

Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week

#494

Post by imoverclocked » Wed, Dec 20, 2023, 7:27 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #461

imoverclocked wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also value in monitoring stats over time. ie: knowing what's normal for you and even a normal range throughout the day allows you to identify changes before you get to a state where a hospital is needed. On the non-medical side, I fly small, unpressurized airplanes and altitude can definitely have an effect on blood oxygen levels. Having this data collected in the background as I fly or do other activities i…

Valuable as in "satisfies my curiosity" or valuable in some actionable way?

I admit, I definitely have curiosity.

I have not had to act on the data yet but if I were to get a low O2 alert while flying I would definitely open a window and descend ASAP. Depending on the circumstances I might also consider landing.

Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week

#495

Post by freejazz » Wed, Dec 20, 2023, 8:58 PM UTC

simondotau wrote: post #472

freejazz wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Perhaps I don't know the basic dynamics of patent litigation. You're an expert, could you enlighten me? Yeah, FRAND is pro-big business. It removes the upper limit on damages, i.e. minimizes the risk a business faces by infringing, which therefore minimizes any incentive to license a patent. It also reduces the incentive for a patentee to enforce their patent, as it takes ~$2-3m to litigate against a company like Ap…

If you have evidence to show that making compliance more efficient encourages non-compliance, I'd like to see it. And yeah, I’m using the word compliance in the straightforward, obvious way. If that’s a problem for you, I don’t think this discussion is ever going to be useful. Think about it. If legislation can make FRAND mandatory, it can also make the penalties sufficiently unfavourable to large corporations. Perha…

>And yeah, I’m using the word compliance in the straightforward, obvious way. If that’s a problem for you, I don’t think this discussion is ever going to be useful.

I'm a patent litigator - nobody uses the word compliance in this field. It's not me that is making this conversation difficult. It's your apparent ignorance and obtuseness.

> Think about it. If legislation can make FRAND mandatory, it can also make the penalties sufficiently unfavourable to large corporations

Do you even know what FRAND stands for? Is this a joke?

>Perhaps, and I’m just spitballing here, back pay for non-compliance could have a defined multiplier. Then there could be an additional multiplier for non-compliance after the date a complaint is made by the patent holder. And a further additional multiplier for non-compliance if the corporation has revenues over $100 million annually.

Compliance WITH WHAT???

>The key point is that the system can be built in such a way that a patent holder doesn’t need a team of lawyers with clever tricks to be entitled to favourable outcomes.

Patentees don't need clever tricks, they just need to prove infringement. That's the only hard part. You skip past that entirely. I think that's what you mean by compliance, but you don't seem to have any idea how any of this actually works. Which is bizarre considering you are offering recommendations on how to improve something that you do not understand.

Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week

#496

Post by taeric » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 3:46 AM UTC

caminante wrote: post #490

taeric wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is fair to argue against it, to a large extent. However, patents are techniques and methods to do something. This would almost be akin to a sport team getting exclusive use of a play because they registered their playbook first. Which, yes, sounds "wild." I, sadly, don't know all of the details in this case. But with patents, remember that you don't even have to show that "Bob" even knew of the existence o…

My point was simpler: negotiations don't have to end in agreement, let alone trying to get a patent license. This discussion has devolved into abstract swipes at the patent law system with characterizations that don't even apply if you take the article at face value.

But that plays into the "wild" part. It is wild that you can refuse to let someone do something that you know how to do.

In the "compulsive licensing" world, it would be "wild" to not allow someone to perform a song that you played first. Which is why we don't allow that.

In fashion, it would be wild for you to have certain button schemes that nobody else can use. We don't allow that. In math, it would be wild to have equations nobody could use. We... sorta do not allow that.

Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week

#497

Post by caminante » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 4:36 AM UTC

taeric wrote: post #496

caminante wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was simpler: negotiations don't have to end in agreement, let alone trying to get a patent license. This discussion has devolved into abstract swipes at the patent law system with characterizations that don't even apply if you take the article at face value.

But that plays into the "wild" part. It is wild that you can refuse to let someone do something that you know how to do. In the "compulsive licensing" world, it would be "wild" to not allow someone to perform a song that you played first. Which is why we don't allow that. In fashion, it would be wild for you to have certain button schemes that nobody else can use. We don't allow that. In math, it would be wild to hav…

I understand your point (patents are quirky in that they give unilateral blocking rights).

That's not what I'm taking issue with.

Remember, the entire premise of this subthread isn't even grounded in the facts of this case!

Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week

#498

Post by simondotau » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 7:48 AM UTC

freejazz wrote: post #495

simondotau wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have evidence to show that making compliance more efficient encourages non-compliance, I'd like to see it. And yeah, I’m using the word compliance in the straightforward, obvious way. If that’s a problem for you, I don’t think this discussion is ever going to be useful. Think about it. If legislation can make FRAND mandatory, it can also make the penalties sufficiently unfavourable to large corporations. Perha…

>And yeah, I’m using the word compliance in the straightforward, obvious way. If that’s a problem for you, I don’t think this discussion is ever going to be useful. I'm a patent litigator - nobody uses the word compliance in this field. It's not me that is making this conversation difficult. It's your apparent ignorance and obtuseness. > Think about it. If legislation can make FRAND mandatory, it can also make the pe…

> Compliance WITH WHAT???

With the licensing of patents? Duh?

> I'm a patent litigator

Ah. I'm reminded of the famous quote — "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Community discussions are wher you talk with other people, not to win on a technicality in a courtroom.

> nobody uses the word compliance in this field

I'm sorry that the word compliance isn't sufficiently in-group for you. Perhaps tell people that you want to gate-keep rather than discuss, as it'll save other people a lot of time.

Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week

#499

Post by iAMkenough » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 9:04 AM UTC

kshahkshah wrote: post #189

iAMkenough wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same reason you don't see too many "Connects to Apple Watch" pieces of gym equipment floating around. Apple doesn't want to get into the gym equipment or medical device manufacturing business.

I see plenty of that. Technogym products integrate with the Apple Watch. Why wouldn't they want to enter the the gym space at the least?

> Why wouldn't they want to enter the gym space at the least?

We're still waiting for Peloton to be profitable. Since Apple's fitness customers already have Apple hardware, they might as well sell you their own version of the service Peloton provides without occurring the expense of producing Peloton-equivalent hardware.

Re: Apple to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week

#500

Post by rickdeckard » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 9:46 AM UTC

dwaite wrote: post #492

rickdeckard wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Besides the patent infringement (..) You exclude the only topic in discussion here. Noone is framing this as an issue of individual employees. It's an issue between two companies, and one of them has a very thin argument to claim that it didn't systematically extract the other one's IP without paying for it. As mentioned elsewhere: This strategy surely works most of the time, especially on smaller companies unable…

> You exclude the only topic in discussion here. Then why are we (as a group) talking about prior meetings, or employees getting hired?

Because those actions demonstrate that the company Apple didn't rebuild the IP of the company Masimo by accident, they had close contact with each other beforehand.