3 ms·

Patents are why we can't have nice things.

echelon 3y ago
This kept Apple's grubby paws off of a small innovator. The industry needs more patents to defend against egregious titans. Apple has more than enough money to license this patent if they so choose. Apple needs serious competition. And that won't happen with their massive scale until regulators start nipping away at their all-encompassing competitive moat. The largest companies are barely innovating at all, and that should speak volumes. They're camping their position and raking in easy money from the folks doing all the hard work at the bottom.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  A small medical innovator who's going to charge twice the price for a device that only has the oxygen monitor. Hooray. > The largest companies are barely innovating at all Well, Apple had an oxygen monitor integrated into their smartwatch. That's pretty innovative. ... Until the government forces them to stop I guess.
  - echelon 3y ago
    > A small medical innovator who's going to charge twice the price for a device that only has the oxygen monitor. When it's not subsidized by the unrelated business unit profit of a monopoly, well, yeah. > That's pretty innovative. ... Until the government forces them to stop I guess. Apple's finally getting the treatment they give to their developers!
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      > When it's not subsidized by the unrelated business unit profit of a monopoly, well, yeah. Indeed. And that sucks for the consumer. Why should we consider subsidizing less profitable beneficial offerings with more profitable offerings a bad thing? That's how every charity the industrial barons put together that still maintain some of the civic spaces in the US came to be. The steel boom funding a library and an opera house and all that.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > Apple needs serious competition. And that won't happen with their massive scale until regulators Regulators are the worst way to create competition. Apple has extremely serious competition in the form of Android. iPhone's global market share just hit its highest ever, at 20.1%[0]. > The largest companies are barely innovating at all If you don't see any mobile phone innovation that's happened, I don't know what to tell you. Go back only 20 years and you'll see an incredible difference. [0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/apple-hits-all-time-high-smartphone-market-share-takes-1-spot-for-2023 https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/apple-hits-all-time-...
  - echelon 3y ago
    > Regulators are the worst way to create competition. Complete and utter hogwash! > Apple has extremely serious competition in the form of Android. This is a duopoly of devices, and you are forced to buy into their fiefdoms. Each company taxes every single form of commerce, transaction, and customer connection on their devices. Devices that have become the most essential piece of operating as a person in this century. Smartphones are used to navigate, take photos, find dates, order food (at restaurants!), pay at point of sale, schedule events, network, email, do work, find jobs, order kitchen supplies, do workouts, ... These are more important than the internet itself at this point, and there are only two companies. They choose what you can do, what you can deploy, when you can deploy, what tech you can use, and they tax you 30%. You have to fit into their payments and login stack, jump through their upgrade hurdles, and they're nice enough to let competitors place ads against you. I won't even begin to speak towards the insane anti-consumer behavior they have, like green bubble fomo for children and 3rd party parts DRMing. These devices - smartphones - need to be regulated with the force of every country's legal and judicial power. > iPhone's global market share just hit its highest ever, at 20.1%[0]. It's over 50% in the US, and they're egregious to US businesses and consumers.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      Apple might be doing some things which are beneficial for the society as a whole and would increase the level of competition in the industry, like trying to invalidate this specific patent, while also engaging in very abusive practices themselves (like the app store “monopoly”, ignoring repairability etc.). These things are certainly not mutually exclusive
- nradov 3y ago
  I won't attempt to defend Apple's conduct here, but they do have serious competition in the smartwatch market. Products from Garmin, Samsung, Suunto, etc are equivalent or better than any Apple watch depending on which features you want. Some of them do include blood oxygen monitoring. Those either licensed the Masimo patents or use different, non-infringing technology.
- tux3 3y ago
  This is an invention from the middle of the last century. The two patents describe a device with 4 leds, a temperature sensor, and a processor. The invention of the pulse ox was innovation. Putting it on a portable device and increasing the number of LEDs to 4 is not the level of contribution that really justifies 20 years of legal protection.
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  Apple's moat is built on intellectual property. You're proposing we bring in Cthulhu to fight Godzilla.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    In general, the large companies are holding patents specifically just to keep from having small companies like this hamstring them.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  > Apple needs serious competition Masimo has zero interest in increasing the degree of competition in the industry. Also the patent in question itself seems dubious, and it’s rather silly that it’s even valid
OhNoNotAgain_99 3y ago
[dead]
Johnny555 3y ago
Patents are why people can get paid for inventing nice things. For sure there's a lot of patent abuse, but in this case it sounds like patents are working as they should, Apple just decided to use the patented technology without bothering to license it.
- survirtual 3y ago
  The invention is trivial and anyone thinking on the topic could come up with it. It is just a matter of interest and having the money to navigate the labyrinth patent system / hiring a patent lawyer. All it does it protect those with money and connections already, at the cost of humanity.
  - polski-g 3y ago
    And yet, it took 260,000 years for humanity to "come up with it".
    - soraminazuki 3y ago
      Irrelevant. That argument can be used for anything relating to electronics. You're essentially claiming that any patent mentioning electronics should be automatically accepted. That's unfortunately not so far off from reality, but it's not supposed to be the case.
- whamlastxmas 3y ago
  Let me fix that: Patents are why corporations can get paid for people inventing nice things

This kept Apple's grubby paws off of a small innovator. The industry needs more patents to defend against egregious titans. Apple has more than enough money to license this patent if they so choose. Apple needs serious competition. And that won't happen with their massive scale until regulators start nipping away at their all-encompassing competitive moat. The largest companies are barely innovating at all, and that should speak volumes. They're camping their position and raking in easy money from the folks doing all the hard work at the bottom.

shadowgovt 3y ago
A small medical innovator who's going to charge twice the price for a device that only has the oxygen monitor. Hooray. > The largest companies are barely innovating at all Well, Apple had an oxygen monitor integrated into their smartwatch. That's pretty innovative. ... Until the government forces them to stop I guess.
- echelon 3y ago
  > A small medical innovator who's going to charge twice the price for a device that only has the oxygen monitor. When it's not subsidized by the unrelated business unit profit of a monopoly, well, yeah. > That's pretty innovative. ... Until the government forces them to stop I guess. Apple's finally getting the treatment they give to their developers!
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    > When it's not subsidized by the unrelated business unit profit of a monopoly, well, yeah. Indeed. And that sucks for the consumer. Why should we consider subsidizing less profitable beneficial offerings with more profitable offerings a bad thing? That's how every charity the industrial barons put together that still maintain some of the civic spaces in the US came to be. The steel boom funding a library and an opera house and all that.
robertlagrant 3y ago
> Apple needs serious competition. And that won't happen with their massive scale until regulators Regulators are the worst way to create competition. Apple has extremely serious competition in the form of Android. iPhone's global market share just hit its highest ever, at 20.1%[0]. > The largest companies are barely innovating at all If you don't see any mobile phone innovation that's happened, I don't know what to tell you. Go back only 20 years and you'll see an incredible difference. [0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/apple-hits-all-time-high-smartphone-market-share-takes-1-spot-for-2023 https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/apple-hits-all-time-...
- echelon 3y ago
  > Regulators are the worst way to create competition. Complete and utter hogwash! > Apple has extremely serious competition in the form of Android. This is a duopoly of devices, and you are forced to buy into their fiefdoms. Each company taxes every single form of commerce, transaction, and customer connection on their devices. Devices that have become the most essential piece of operating as a person in this century. Smartphones are used to navigate, take photos, find dates, order food (at restaurants!), pay at point of sale, schedule events, network, email, do work, find jobs, order kitchen supplies, do workouts, ... These are more important than the internet itself at this point, and there are only two companies. They choose what you can do, what you can deploy, when you can deploy, what tech you can use, and they tax you 30%. You have to fit into their payments and login stack, jump through their upgrade hurdles, and they're nice enough to let competitors place ads against you. I won't even begin to speak towards the insane anti-consumer behavior they have, like green bubble fomo for children and 3rd party parts DRMing. These devices - smartphones - need to be regulated with the force of every country's legal and judicial power. > iPhone's global market share just hit its highest ever, at 20.1%[0]. It's over 50% in the US, and they're egregious to US businesses and consumers.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    Apple might be doing some things which are beneficial for the society as a whole and would increase the level of competition in the industry, like trying to invalidate this specific patent, while also engaging in very abusive practices themselves (like the app store “monopoly”, ignoring repairability etc.). These things are certainly not mutually exclusive
nradov 3y ago
I won't attempt to defend Apple's conduct here, but they do have serious competition in the smartwatch market. Products from Garmin, Samsung, Suunto, etc are equivalent or better than any Apple watch depending on which features you want. Some of them do include blood oxygen monitoring. Those either licensed the Masimo patents or use different, non-infringing technology.
tux3 3y ago
This is an invention from the middle of the last century. The two patents describe a device with 4 leds, a temperature sensor, and a processor. The invention of the pulse ox was innovation. Putting it on a portable device and increasing the number of LEDs to 4 is not the level of contribution that really justifies 20 years of legal protection.
kmeisthax 3y ago
Apple's moat is built on intellectual property. You're proposing we bring in Cthulhu to fight Godzilla.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  In general, the large companies are holding patents specifically just to keep from having small companies like this hamstring them.
ffgjgf1 3y ago
> Apple needs serious competition Masimo has zero interest in increasing the degree of competition in the industry. Also the patent in question itself seems dubious, and it’s rather silly that it’s even valid

OhNoNotAgain_99 3y ago

[dead]

Johnny555 3y ago

Patents are why people can get paid for inventing nice things. For sure there's a lot of patent abuse, but in this case it sounds like patents are working as they should, Apple just decided to use the patented technology without bothering to license it.

survirtual 3y ago
The invention is trivial and anyone thinking on the topic could come up with it. It is just a matter of interest and having the money to navigate the labyrinth patent system / hiring a patent lawyer. All it does it protect those with money and connections already, at the cost of humanity.
- polski-g 3y ago
  And yet, it took 260,000 years for humanity to "come up with it".
  - soraminazuki 3y ago
    Irrelevant. That argument can be used for anything relating to electronics. You're essentially claiming that any patent mentioning electronics should be automatically accepted. That's unfortunately not so far off from reality, but it's not supposed to be the case.
whamlastxmas 3y ago
Let me fix that: Patents are why corporations can get paid for people inventing nice things