Masimo has spent $100M in Apple Watch patent infringement fight

I wish them luck with their fight. From what I have read, they've a genuine case here and Apple knows it.

The profile on the company and Kiani's legal fights includes claims that some people view his "aggressive use of the U.S. patent system" as being "exploitation that stymies the innovation of others."

Ah, a patent troll after all. 

After reading the Masimo vs True Wearables case, you really have to think that some aspects of the court are just irrational and willfully incurious. 

The case centered on whether n-dimensional regression fitting could be considered a secret. A statistics expert in the case say this type of algorithm technique has been in use for 60 years. 

The court deemed that it may be known in fields of math, but it is not in well known in the field of medical devices, and therefore could be considered a trade secret. True Wearables was prevented from being awarded a patent, and is now out of business I think. 

Absolutely nutso decision. When all this stuff uses ML, basically n-dimensional fitting but not constrained to the linear expansion old techniques use, I wonder what the courts are going to say. 

tophatnosocks said:

Masimo already won the patten case, correct?  Just Apple contesting in court the outcome...

So ya getting Apple to pay up is next, but this Kiani guy thinking that, that also entitles him to "change its interactions with smaller companies." of Apple, is really a joke. 

I get that they 'Apple' should, but that's not what his win in court was.   It really makes me laugh at this Kiani guy.  He's acting like some kind of police, and don't forget Masimo is an almost two billion dollar company. They hosed people somewhere.  

The Masimo vs Apple patent and trade secrets case ended in a mistrial, where the jury voted 6-1 in favor of Apple. Mistrial means no action from the Court I believe. Masimo is appealing. 

The Apple patent appeals trial against Masimo’s asserted patents resulted in 15 of 17 asserted patents being invalidated. Apple is continuing to try to get the last 2 invalidated. 

The Apple vs Masimo countersuit on Masimo’s W1 watch is ongoing. 

The Masimo vs Apple US International Trade Commission case is now pending US Fed Appeals court review on whether Apple’s proposed software update stops the ITC’s claim that Apple infringed on a couple of patents. Jan 10 to 15. If the Court says Apple’s software update is likely to stop infringement, they will prevent the ITC import ban from taking effect until the software update is finished? Then further review for another 10 months?

Most of this articles seems to be about the money Masimo makes out of patent settlements. Is Masimo a serious company or is it a patent troll that keeps up a charade of selling medical products. To research that I checked Amazon. Their Masimo MightySat Fingertip Pulse Oximeter currently sells for $269.99. It has a 4.5 star rating and has sold a mere 50+ in the past month. That's not much business for a company that's spending $100 million on lawyers. They have no business to save worth speaking of.A similar looking Innovo Deluxe Fingertip Pulse Oximeter has a slightly better 4.7 star rating, sells for $34.99 and has sold 5K+ in the past month. Indeed, Amazon has page after page filled with pulse oximeters selling for between $25 and $45. Masimo's is such a far outliner I could not find another even close to its price.What's really odd is when I had Amazon display pulse oximeters priced from high to low, the Masimo did not even appear. The most expensive one displayed is from Zacurate at $44.99. I've been told by people at Amazon that its search results aren't literally accurate, that some items aren't displayed for reasons known only to Amazon. I suspect Amazon considers the Masimo so grossly overpriced, it doesn't bother to list it in some search results. In fact when I searched for Masimo pulse oximeter by name, it only came up fifth. Also, there's nothing remarkable about Masimo's product even though it sells for about six times the market price. Accuracy certainly isn't a factor. It's displays two digits on a tiny display just like all the other products, that's a 1% accuracy, which is fine for that purpose. There's also deception in this claim. Clinically Proven Technology: Powered by Masimo SET, the same technology used by 9 of the top 10 US hospitals and is used to monitor more than 200 Million patients annually.Yeah, that "same technology" is not only used by "top hospitals," it's almost certainly used in these inexpensive home ones. That's where that 200 million figure comes from for a country with about 330 million people.  It would not surprise me if it was being made in the same Chinese factories that make those $25 pulse oximeters. It looks much the same.I've been known to criticize Apple's business tactics, but in this case I'm on Apple's side. They're battling a dishonest patent troll that sells overpriced sham products. I wish them every success.

Masimo's remaining patents on O2 saturation sensing seem to be continuation patents with slight changes from the parent patents awarded over a decade ago. Most have been invalidated and makes me wonder how Masimo managed to get over a billion dollars in damages in the 2 cases past 10 years. No one questioned the prior art that existed for technology that is now 80 years old? The one patent that the ITC ruled was being infringed on by Apple was awarded in 2021... and imo is a rather trivial improvement. However I am not sure if a software change will get around it. The ITC has lawyers with engineering backgrounds, but they really are over their heads on this one. This needs to go to a proper court with patent experts. Finally if/when Masimo's remaining patents are invalidated, will they even have an O2 sensing business left - apart from the audio companies they have recently purchased?