Apple, along with the Apple Watch, was hit with one punch Friday. The judge found against the gadget titan, ordering it to pay $ 634 million to the Health Tech Company Masimo, while on the same day the US International Trade Commission announced whether it wanted to ban Apple watches from Apple.
Two major successes for Masimo, its years-long legal battle against Apple is raging and seemingly endless.
Apple gave a statement to Yahoo’s financials to that effect. The representative said that “In the last six years” Massimo has stopped many courts, and “asserted more than 25 patents, most of which were found to be illegal.” The decision in this case concerns a patent, which Apple says Apple says, “expires in 2022, and is specific to patient monitor monitoring technology from decades past.”
In 2024, apple simply removed the O Oxygen Monitor feature to get around the import ban. YHE redesigned apple watches have now been renewed for ITC review and are not what the jury recently found in violation of Masimo’s patents.
For what it’s worth, Masimo’s technology is mainly designed for hospital and clinical use, but they say Apple has copied its patented technology – which is used to monitor the work of guards and monitor the heart. Apple’s argument, that the patent expires in 2022, and that Apple’s products are consumer gadgets rather than hospital equipment, apparently failed to convince the jury.
Meanwhile, the ONEVEMBA 14 Order from the ITC says that the commission will now investigate whether the apple made, puts in place the previous ban, and violates the patent from Masimo. “This proceeding does not take the opportunity to relax other safeguards that were, or should have been, investigating the violation of the law,” the order said.
There have been many twists and turns in the Apple-Masimo soap opera. The most exciting one may be that Apple almost won a Countersersuit against Masimo last year after Masimo was created for its Smart Watch product—and Apple was awarded $250 in damages. Apple’s claim is that Masimo was infringing on its design patents, and representatives say the ultimate goal of the suit was an injunction, not damages.
The complicated affair is said to have gone back to 2013, when Apple first sought a dialogue with Masimo about creating watches that monitor people’s pulses, then ended up paying twice as much as it was doing, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times. That’s not all, according to Masimo engineer Joe Kiani, who said that Apple has planned more for Masimo’s employees than just two bills. Kiani said: “A lot of people didn’t go, but there are still 20 people,” Kiani said.
A 2023 article in the Wall Street Journal serquday is about how Apple is said to want to work with small firms, including Masimo, and engage in practices that are allegedly similar to stealing ideas. “When apple becomes interested in a company, it’s the kiss of death,” Masimo’s Kiani told the magazine.
Masimo sued in 2020 over the theft of trade secrets. That property ended with a hung jury.
