It's pretty nontrivial to buy a majority interest in any public company. It's not like you can just spend 1/2 the current market cap to acquire it, the price will shoot up drastically as soon as the market is aware of someone (especially Apple) trying to do it.
As long as the cost is less than what apple makes from the watches annually, it would still be worth it, no?
Sometimes companies have poison pill provisions and similar that makes it veeeeery expensive to do a hostile takeover.
IP/patent law is holding back innovation. Prove me wrong. You can’t invent anything or push something to market without stepping on at least 1 or more vague patents.
At least, unlike copyright, patents don't last forever...
Since Masimo is a publicly traded company, can’t Apple just buy enough shares to have a controlling interest in the company and just force them to back out?
Maybe the patent lawsuit was an attempt to try to force Apple to buy the IP. They’d make money either way.
Since Masimo is a publicly traded company, can’t Apple just buy enough shares to have a controlling interest in the company and just force them to back out?
It's pretty nontrivial to buy a majority interest in any public company. It's not like you can just spend 1/2 the current market cap to acquire it, the price will shoot up drastically as soon as the market is aware of someone (especially Apple) trying to do it.
its too expensive (150 per share and going up), apple would need to spend billions
Is there any way to implement a portable oximeter without infringing on any patents ? Furthermore, is there any way to do anything without infringing on any patent ? The patent system is really outdated, it's good for lazy people who want to live off royalties, but for end-customers and innovation, this is really bad. (and it does a bad job at preventing foreign companies to launch clones)
Apple has the best engineers and can probably figure out a way
> If there's a way to do it, you'd think Apple would probably have enough money to pull it off if having an oximeter was going to make them money. Why should they get a pass or shortcut to a successful product just because they're Apple?
So it’s your position that there is a way to do this without violating the patent, and Apple has chosen to be lazy and not pursue it?
> their pockets aren't infinitely deep Interesting take
I'm sure you're familiar with the meaning of "infinite", as I'm sure you are familiar with the difference between "market capitalization" and "cash on hand". Assuming those two statements to be true, what's your point? EDIT: and I see parent pulled a ninja edit. Stay classy.
Hostile takeovers aren't usually that fast, but yes apple can probably afford to buy the company, one way or another
Even more hostile scenario (if this is even legal, probably not, though I'm not sure): Apple could borrow a large amount of shares of Masimo and short the company. They have enough cash for that, and the borrow fee might be less than the settlement costs, plus they could profit from the operation.
If you mean shorting Masimo purely to drive down the price, that's market manipulation and is definitely illegal. E.g.
Alternatively, someone at Apple thought "we should add one of those pulse ox thingies like they've used in the doctor's office for the last 50 years into our next watch", saw that Masimo was a player in the space, met with them, and then decided they'd rather do it themselves. This is not something Masimo invented themselves. The class of devices existed for decades before Masimo even existed. I'm not saying that App…
> met with them, and then decided they'd rather do it themselves ..., headhunted Masimo engineers, and hired them to reimplement a pulse-ox device. > Masimo and Apple began their relationship in 2013, when Apple discussed potentially integrating Masimo’s sensing technology into future Apple products. Internally, Apple executives debated the idea of buying Masimo and making its chief executive a vice president, accord…
From an employee's point of view, I'm 100% OK with that. If Apple wants to throw money at an engineer to do the same thing they were already doing, but for Apple, then by all means do so. I don't think it's at all unethical to hire away employees. If it were, that'd lead to bad outcomes for those people (i.e. artificially suppressed wages).
If Biden sides with Masimo and Apple’s appeals are unsuccessful, it may have to modify the Watch’s software to remove the blood oxygen feature in order to resume sales. Not that I use the feature all that often, but if I did, I guess it would be time to turn off automatic updates until it gets sorted. TFA is extremely light on details, given that Apple is effectively ordering a stop-ship on their hardware. Was there…
If you got to the lawsuit point you already tried negotiation.
Is there any way to implement a portable oximeter without infringing on any patents ? Furthermore, is there any way to do anything without infringing on any patent ? The patent system is really outdated, it's good for lazy people who want to live off royalties, but for end-customers and innovation, this is really bad. (and it does a bad job at preventing foreign companies to launch clones)
Apple has the best engineers and can probably figure out a way
I think it is more like people on HN dislike the idea of Software / Hardware patents in general that are similar to these but I agree that people can be biased especially the company being attacked.