5 ms·

It probably won’t be long before they are forced to brick the O2 functionality of existing watches as well. Why don’t they just pay up?

prepend 3y ago
I assume because it’s cheaper to lose that feature than the pay the required licensing fee. The patent holder is a medical device company that is probably used to much more expensive price points than consumer tech. So having a $300 watch available that does o2 readings as much as a multi thousand dollar medical device is probably something they aren’t super thrilled about being in the market.
- jkaplowitz 3y ago
  They in fact do offer their own "consumer-targeting smartwatch, the W1 series, [with] FDA clearance for providing blood oxygen saturation levels." (Source: the article we're all discussing.) Link to their smartwatch: https://www.masimopersonalhealth.com/products/masimo-w1 https://www.masimopersonalhealth.com/products/masimo-w1 It's actually in the same price range as the Apple Watch Series 9. So their reluctance to license the patent to Apple may be probably partly about competing with Apple, partly about Apple's alleged bad-faith behavior in past dealings with them, and possibly also disinclination on the part of Apple to pay them for a license. But not about Apple's retail price point per unit.
  - WWLink 3y ago
    There's also a membership that doesn't look optional....
- eloisius 3y ago
  Blood oxygen monitors aren’t event expensive. You can buy little ones that clamp onto your fingertip for like $20. Seems odd that they couldn’t use their weight to secure a license. Where is the Apple that refused to have the “Intel inside” stickers on their laptops?
  - Maxious 3y ago
    They were negotiating a licence but their star engineer emailed Tim Cook offering to work for Apple directly after he wasn't made CTO of a spinoff company. > He clashed with managers, demanded multimillion-dollar budgets and wanted the ability to hire his own engineers without approval, Hotelling said in a deposition that was part of a court fight between the companies. After weeks of discussions, Lamego left Apple. After his stint at Apple, Lamego ended up starting his own company, True Wearables. In 2016, he released a device called the Oxxiom, which he called the world’s first continuous and disposable blood-oxygen sensor. Masimo sued the start-up and won a court order blocking it from selling the product. https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/the-late-night-email-to-tim-cook-that-set-the-apple-watch-saga-in-motion-20231228-p5eu0i.html https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/the-late-night-ema...
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Blood oxygen monitors aren’t event expensive. You can buy little ones that clamp onto your fingertip for like $20. It's not about just any blood oxigen measuring tech, there's various ways you can do it and apparently Apple's newest watch is implementing a very accurate technique developed by Masimo. Those $20 devices exist because measuring blood oxygen accurately via light refracted through flesh is way easier than via light reflect off the flesh(especially as you move around), which is what this fight is all about. >Seems odd that they couldn’t use their weight to secure a license. Or, you know, pay for it? It's not like Apple is scrapping for change behind the couch cushions.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      > implementing a very accurate technique developed by Masimo. I’m not sure it’s very technologically complex though. Seems like the patent just covers the positioning of a few sensors. It’s about as silly as allowing “multitouch” to be patented…
- kcplate 3y ago
  > I assume because it’s cheaper to lose that feature than the pay the required licensing fee. Without a doubt. I would imagine the number of people that would actually choose to not buy an Apple Watch because it doesn’t have a blood oxygen sensor is really really small. I also believe it’s likely that people considering upgrading an existing Apple Watch will not be deterred by the removal of the feature. My sense is that Apple felt that it had basically nothing to lose. They were going to incur some legal costs in this anyway, why not let that play out? Remove it if you lose the battle. If you lose out on maybe <500 watch sales no biggie, you still have the optics to your customer base that you exhausted all options to keep the feature.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  Masimo barely targets the consumer market. 97% of their revenue is hospital devices. They’re not competing. Their devices tie in to hospital EMRs, do brain activity monitoring, and all sorts of other thing’s that aren’t in the same ballpark as an Apple Watch.
amelius 3y ago
> Why don’t they just pay up? Unfortunately, patents can entirely block the use of a technology, even if enormous sums of money are being offered to use the tech.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
  There’s definitely a price tag, and Apple doesn’t want to pay.
- albert180 3y ago
  Somehow others competitors managed to do it without patent infringement or just pay the licence fees. Apple just thought they were so big that they could get away with stealing the IP, because they have deeper pocket for court proceedings. It's not the first time they do it
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Apple will just not offer the capability until the patent expires. Consumers will still buy the watches, they bought them before this existed.
    - albert180 3y ago
      If the court finally determines in the End that they violated the patent, they have no choice but to pay up for all the watches already out there. If they are smart they will now offer a good deal for both sides instead of loosing and pay a huge punitive damage
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        Apple has almost a $3T market cap, I'm sure their legal team will be fine coming to a favorable arrangement if nerfing the functionality with software updates isn't sufficient. They can fund any settlement out of ~$380B in annual revenue. Any settlement under ~$1B is a day of revenue. The horror.
rwc 3y ago
Because the O2 sensor was a COVID-era feature that nobody cares about now and moves zero units. Soon Apple will have definitive confirmation in the form of Watch sales data.
- al_borland 3y ago
  It’s not only useful for COVID, that just got it mainstream attention. If used along with the sleep tracking, it seems like the O2 could signal someone to get treated for sleep apnea. The Apple Watch Ultra is geared toward hikers and people going off the beaten path, for those in the mountains, this is something to monitor at high elevations. It can also signal the user of heart and lung issues that they’d want to get eyes on.
- arthurofbabylon 3y ago
  Sentence 2 is particularly interesting.
- d6e 3y ago
  It’s also useful for VO2 max calculation which is commonly trained for athletes
  - nradov 3y ago
    No, SpO2 isn't used for VO2 Max calculations. SpO2 measured at the wrist doesn't tell you anything about how much oxygen is being metabolized. Only heart rate (including HRV) and speed or power are used as input for the VO2 Max estimate. Wristwatches can't even measure SpO2 accurately when you're running around, you have to hold fairly still to get a consistent reading.
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  I care about it. Its actually the only new feature that I would have upgraded for. I know a lot of people that got it for that specific feature. Not one of them got it for COVID or medical reasons. There are huge communities of people that really like this feature. Notably, many people that do things at altitude. I won't pretend that my narrow experience is a market maker, but I also won't generalize it to say something as broad as its a feature "nobody cares about now and moves zero units." Try to think beyond your own experiences and worldview.
jzl 3y ago
Because modern day Apple will happily cut off their hand to spite their face.
Booourns 3y ago
The order is only that they can’t import them into the US with this feature enabled. The sensor is still on it and been disabled in software. The actual case around the patent infringement is still going through the courts and if I understand correctly nothing has been decided with that.
- Sai_ 3y ago
  Could apple publish a way for US customers to themselves re-enable the feature? If publishing software is a first amendment right, then I don’t see any legal way to prevent them from doing this.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    I would really love to see Apple providing explicit instructions on how to jailbreak their own devices

prepend 3y ago

I assume because it’s cheaper to lose that feature than the pay the required licensing fee. The patent holder is a medical device company that is probably used to much more expensive price points than consumer tech. So having a $300 watch available that does o2 readings as much as a multi thousand dollar medical device is probably something they aren’t super thrilled about being in the market.

jkaplowitz 3y ago
They in fact do offer their own "consumer-targeting smartwatch, the W1 series, [with] FDA clearance for providing blood oxygen saturation levels." (Source: the article we're all discussing.) Link to their smartwatch: https://www.masimopersonalhealth.com/products/masimo-w1 https://www.masimopersonalhealth.com/products/masimo-w1 It's actually in the same price range as the Apple Watch Series 9. So their reluctance to license the patent to Apple may be probably partly about competing with Apple, partly about Apple's alleged bad-faith behavior in past dealings with them, and possibly also disinclination on the part of Apple to pay them for a license. But not about Apple's retail price point per unit.
- WWLink 3y ago
  There's also a membership that doesn't look optional....
eloisius 3y ago
Blood oxygen monitors aren’t event expensive. You can buy little ones that clamp onto your fingertip for like $20. Seems odd that they couldn’t use their weight to secure a license. Where is the Apple that refused to have the “Intel inside” stickers on their laptops?
- Maxious 3y ago
  They were negotiating a licence but their star engineer emailed Tim Cook offering to work for Apple directly after he wasn't made CTO of a spinoff company. > He clashed with managers, demanded multimillion-dollar budgets and wanted the ability to hire his own engineers without approval, Hotelling said in a deposition that was part of a court fight between the companies. After weeks of discussions, Lamego left Apple. After his stint at Apple, Lamego ended up starting his own company, True Wearables. In 2016, he released a device called the Oxxiom, which he called the world’s first continuous and disposable blood-oxygen sensor. Masimo sued the start-up and won a court order blocking it from selling the product. https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/the-late-night-email-to-tim-cook-that-set-the-apple-watch-saga-in-motion-20231228-p5eu0i.html https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/the-late-night-ema...
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Blood oxygen monitors aren’t event expensive. You can buy little ones that clamp onto your fingertip for like $20. It's not about just any blood oxigen measuring tech, there's various ways you can do it and apparently Apple's newest watch is implementing a very accurate technique developed by Masimo. Those $20 devices exist because measuring blood oxygen accurately via light refracted through flesh is way easier than via light reflect off the flesh(especially as you move around), which is what this fight is all about. >Seems odd that they couldn’t use their weight to secure a license. Or, you know, pay for it? It's not like Apple is scrapping for change behind the couch cushions.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    > implementing a very accurate technique developed by Masimo. I’m not sure it’s very technologically complex though. Seems like the patent just covers the positioning of a few sensors. It’s about as silly as allowing “multitouch” to be patented…
kcplate 3y ago
> I assume because it’s cheaper to lose that feature than the pay the required licensing fee. Without a doubt. I would imagine the number of people that would actually choose to not buy an Apple Watch because it doesn’t have a blood oxygen sensor is really really small. I also believe it’s likely that people considering upgrading an existing Apple Watch will not be deterred by the removal of the feature. My sense is that Apple felt that it had basically nothing to lose. They were going to incur some legal costs in this anyway, why not let that play out? Remove it if you lose the battle. If you lose out on maybe <500 watch sales no biggie, you still have the optics to your customer base that you exhausted all options to keep the feature.
FireBeyond 3y ago
Masimo barely targets the consumer market. 97% of their revenue is hospital devices. They’re not competing. Their devices tie in to hospital EMRs, do brain activity monitoring, and all sorts of other thing’s that aren’t in the same ballpark as an Apple Watch.

amelius 3y ago

> Why don’t they just pay up? Unfortunately, patents can entirely block the use of a technology, even if enormous sums of money are being offered to use the tech.

cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
There’s definitely a price tag, and Apple doesn’t want to pay.
albert180 3y ago
Somehow others competitors managed to do it without patent infringement or just pay the licence fees. Apple just thought they were so big that they could get away with stealing the IP, because they have deeper pocket for court proceedings. It's not the first time they do it
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Apple will just not offer the capability until the patent expires. Consumers will still buy the watches, they bought them before this existed.
  - albert180 3y ago
    If the court finally determines in the End that they violated the patent, they have no choice but to pay up for all the watches already out there. If they are smart they will now offer a good deal for both sides instead of loosing and pay a huge punitive damage
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Apple has almost a $3T market cap, I'm sure their legal team will be fine coming to a favorable arrangement if nerfing the functionality with software updates isn't sufficient. They can fund any settlement out of ~$380B in annual revenue. Any settlement under ~$1B is a day of revenue. The horror.

rwc 3y ago

Because the O2 sensor was a COVID-era feature that nobody cares about now and moves zero units. Soon Apple will have definitive confirmation in the form of Watch sales data.

al_borland 3y ago
It’s not only useful for COVID, that just got it mainstream attention. If used along with the sleep tracking, it seems like the O2 could signal someone to get treated for sleep apnea. The Apple Watch Ultra is geared toward hikers and people going off the beaten path, for those in the mountains, this is something to monitor at high elevations. It can also signal the user of heart and lung issues that they’d want to get eyes on.
arthurofbabylon 3y ago
Sentence 2 is particularly interesting.
d6e 3y ago
It’s also useful for VO2 max calculation which is commonly trained for athletes
- nradov 3y ago
  No, SpO2 isn't used for VO2 Max calculations. SpO2 measured at the wrist doesn't tell you anything about how much oxygen is being metabolized. Only heart rate (including HRV) and speed or power are used as input for the VO2 Max estimate. Wristwatches can't even measure SpO2 accurately when you're running around, you have to hold fairly still to get a consistent reading.
dghlsakjg 3y ago
I care about it. Its actually the only new feature that I would have upgraded for. I know a lot of people that got it for that specific feature. Not one of them got it for COVID or medical reasons. There are huge communities of people that really like this feature. Notably, many people that do things at altitude. I won't pretend that my narrow experience is a market maker, but I also won't generalize it to say something as broad as its a feature "nobody cares about now and moves zero units." Try to think beyond your own experiences and worldview.

jzl 3y ago

Because modern day Apple will happily cut off their hand to spite their face.

Booourns 3y ago

The order is only that they can’t import them into the US with this feature enabled. The sensor is still on it and been disabled in software. The actual case around the patent infringement is still going through the courts and if I understand correctly nothing has been decided with that.

Sai_ 3y ago
Could apple publish a way for US customers to themselves re-enable the feature? If publishing software is a first amendment right, then I don’t see any legal way to prevent them from doing this.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  I would really love to see Apple providing explicit instructions on how to jailbreak their own devices