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Apple won't license Masimo's patents despite Apple Watch import ban | AppleInsider
(appleinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2024
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I don’t really know any of the intricacies, can you elaborate on why they are not valid?
The short version is that a lot of patents were issued in the 90s and early 2000s for "inventions" that actually already existed "but on a computer!" After a lot of legal wrangling the standards got stricter and these never-should-have-been issued patents have been systematically invalidated, though it's a one-at-a-time process. I think Masimo originally claimed infringement of a dozen patents. From memory, it's now down to two patents that have not been entirely invalidated, and I think even those have already been carved down to remove most of the claims. So basically there are two half-patents left to litigate and Apple thinks they can finish those off as well.
Apple is more than happy to leverage such patents when it sees fit. They’re just throwing a tantrum because they finally ran into a small corporation that they couldn't intimidate.
I wouldn’t really bucket masimo into the little guy” team- from my time in healthcare, they are really not an ethical company due to their aggressively high pricing on simple products only they produce, stifling competition through artificial lockouts and patent trolling.
They are absolutely a "little guy" when Apple calls on the phone. And it is a gross mischaracterization to describe them as a "patent troll." They do not collect patents for pure litigation purposes nor do the seek to use litigation to extort under the color of law for patents they do not use or plan to use.
To be clear, no one who lives in this space is a good actor with completely clean hands; however, it's just not true to paint Masimo in this light.