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a plurality of emitters configured to emit light, each of the emitters comprising at least two light emitting diodes (LEDs); four photodiodes arranged wi
by areoform 3y ago
a plurality of emitters configured to emit light, each of the emitters comprising at least two light emitting diodes (LEDs);
four photodiodes arranged within the user-worn device and configured to receive light after at least a portion of the light has been attenuated by tissue of the user;
a protrusion comprising a convex surface including separate openings extending through the protrusion and lined with opaque material, each opening positioned over a different one associated with each of the four photodiodes, the opaque material configured to reduce an amount of light reaching the photodiodes without being attenuated by the tissue;
optically transparent material within each of the openings; and
one or more processors configured to receive one or more signals from at least one of the four photodiodes and output measurements responsive to the one or more signals, the measurements indicative of the oxygen saturation of the user.
How was this granted a patent? With some fudging, we can stretch this to describe every single pulseoximeter made in the past 50 years.
I would like to assume good faith on behalf of the plaintiffs, but this seems like patent trolling by an otherwise legitimate company.
- behnamoh 3y agothe same way that Apple's "rounded corners for smartphones" was a patent.
- areoform 3y agoA design patent, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent, is different from a patent granted for an invention.
- nox100 3y agoSeems similar to me. Lots of rounded rect products existed before iPhone. Like say, cassette tapes, vhs tapes, 8track tapes, bars of soap, cans of spam, license plates, sardine cans, etc...
- andsoitis 3y ago> Lots of rounded rect products existed before iPhone. The design patent is very specific. It isn't about rounded corners in general. Patent (incl. prior art): http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1701443/USD670286S1.pdf http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1701443/USD670286S1.pdf How to think about it: https://www.theverge.com/2012/11/7/3614506/apple-patents-rectangle-with-rounded-corners https://www.theverge.com/2012/11/7/3614506/apple-patents-rec...
- deaddodo 3y agoDid you read the patent or the article you linked? The patent is very specifically regarding the highlighted region of the patent application, which is (strictly speaking) just a general rounded corner device. Although an IP case would probably hinge on it being a full screen touch device, as well; so "rounded corner phones, tablets, touch interfaces, etc", if you want to be really charitable to the patent + Apple.
- theshrike79 3y agoDesign patents cover, for example, the famous Coca-Cola bottle. Everyone can make bottles, they just can't use that exact shape. What Samsung did that forced Apple to enforce their design patent was copy the design EXACTLY down to the _exact_ radius of the corners. All they had to do was not 100% copy Apple's design, just by changing the ratios a bit and they would've been unaffected.
- fennecfoxy 3y agoForm follows function, do we really expect large corporations to be able to enforce a patent like this given that it _doesn't really matter_? Apple didn't come up with anything new or incredible, it lends nothing to their brand or to the function of the device. There's no negative impact on Apple if their competition uses the same rounded corner radius. Saying so otherwise is just playing into the Apple vs Samsung vs Everyone else team based Robert measuring contest where everyone waves the flag of their favourite corporation that they love so much.
- fennecfoxy 3y agoThat's just being pedantic though; they were pointing out the logic behind a patent of any kind for such a simple thing/feature is ridiculous. And it is. But money talks.
- Khaine 3y agoThat was a design patent[1], which are different from normal patents. A design patent is a form of legal protection granted to the ornamental design of an article of manufacture. Design patents are a type of industrial design right. Whether you think it is a valid design patent or not is a different question. There is no doubt that the outline of the iPhone was iconic, and Apple was trying to protect that, and Samsung was trying to ape it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent
- hedora 3y agoThough that was a design patent, they also got a normal patent for the pythagorean formula (they didn’t invent pinch zoom, so they patented computing the distance between two fingers from two x,y coordinates).
- Retric 3y agoFYI: Apple’s pinch to zoom lets you rotate and drag not just zoom. This kind of subtle differences matter quite a bit from a UI perspective. You could have a punch to zoom system where a pinching motion always resulted in fixed changes to zoom levels. You could describe both implementations as “pint to zoom” but one is a lot more user friendly than the other.
- cma 3y agoDidn't the Microsoft surface table project that predated apple multitouch already show rotation?
- Toutouxc 3y agoThe original Surface was unveiled a few months (May 30, 2007) after the iPhone (January 9, 2007). Not sure who implemented the idea first in the lab, but probably neither of them.
- Retric 3y agoYea, Apple got most of this by buying a company that started working on this stuff in 1999. You can argue about the patents, but in this case it was beneficial for a small innovative company. Also, the original idea for pinch zooming dates back to 1985, but I have no idea what that UI was actually like.
- cma 3y agoThis MS patent predated Apple's earliest, had most of multitouch but I think rotation was a fixed gesture by a set number of degrees https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2013117985A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2013117985A/en
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- SV_BubbleTime 3y agoBeing granted the patent means almost nothing. The only thing that matters is if you can defend it. Which ridiculously I agree, they seem to have been able to do.
- rickdeckard 3y agoIt's worth to read the detailed case. Masimo is not a small company coming out of nowhere to capitalize from Apple, they're a decades-old medical equipment company. The case outlines how Apple met with them in 2013 to discuss collaboration. After that meeting, Apple apparently hired away several key-members of Masimo with knowledge about their non-invasive biometric monitoring tech, including their "Chief Medical Officer and EVP for Medical Affairs", who already joined Apple in that same year... The case claims violation of various patents for non-invasive blood data-collection via LEDs of specific wavelengths and photo-diodes in a specific geometry, patents to reduce power consumption of pulse oximeters as well as patents to detect when a pulse oximeter probe is misaligned on a patient. But most of all, they can demonstrate in the evolution of the Apple Watch how Apple launched their initial generation without such optimizations but found them to be necessary later-on, so it seems Masimo's patents are not that obvious. [1] https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zdvxdyorxvx/ https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zdvxdyorxvx/...
- boxed 3y agoOr maybe they are obvious, just that you don't start a product with all possible optimizations. You get the initial version out, then you iterate.
- onion2k 3y agoYou get the initial version out, then you iterate. "You launch a product that doesn't work and then you fix it later" is a common strategy but it really shouldn't be.
- mort96 3y agoDo you have any sources which demonstrate that the initial version didn't work?
- t0mas88 3y agoIf they are that obvious, why did Apple feel the need to hire several former Masimo employees?