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US Judge invalidates blood glucose sensor patent, opens door for Apple Watch
- nobankai 2y ago[flagged]
- friendzis 2y agoMost good inventions are "obvious" in hindsight.
- ljsprague 2y agoLike the Blonsky birthing table for instance.
- drannex 2y agoThis is why patents are Regressive and should be done away with. They no longer protect small-time inventors, only corporations. They stifle all innovation.
- DecentShoes 2y agoIf they exist, they should be 3 - 5 years. Not 20. That's insane and creates monopolies.
- tombert 2y agoAt least it’s not as terrible as the US copyright system, which is more than 90 years.
- mcny 2y agoThat should also be three to five years.
- LadyCailin 2y agoNo, copyrights make sense to be longer. But not “century” long. But something like 15 years for a copyright, renewable each year after for a growing cost, up to 30 years total, seems reasonable to me. The main point being, if you’re still making money hand over fist from your book you wrote, or film you made, you can keep the copyright. But at some point, you have to prove it has value by paying for it, with a fast growing price each year after, and still a finite time where the copyright goes away entirely. This prevents dead copyrights where you can’t even find the copyright holder, because they died 50 years ago, and the work is obscure, but you want to license it. But if you create some original song or story or whatever, it’s totally fair that only you get to make money from that for a very long while.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago> The main point being, if you’re still making money hand over fist from your book you wrote, or film you made, you can keep the copyright. > But if you create some original song or story or whatever, it’s totally fair that only you get to make money from that for a very long while. Why is this “very long while” based on how much money you are making, and why would it be different from creating anything else? The point of taxpayer funded legal and police protection for owners of patents and copyright terms is to incentivize creating something, not to maximize rent seeking abilities for the creator.
- LadyCailin 2y agoI don’t think preventing you from diluting the brand I created is rent seeking. Creating a work is an investment, which, almost never pays off (think of how many unknown musicians, authors, and artists there are). So when you find something that people like en masse, you should be allowed to reap those benefits. I hardly consider that rent seeking. But the escalating cost prevents actual rent seeking - if your work stops producing value, squatting on it IS rent seeking, and so you have to pay escalating amounts, or relinquish it, and let someone else have a stab at it. You are also allowed to continue to create new derivative works, and you have a huge head start on any future competition, since you have that time limited window. So if you continue to create new value, your timer “restarts” on those new works, so I think that’s sufficient incentive to continue creating.
- michaelt 2y agoCopyright should be shorter, but IMHO it's a lot less bad than patents. If copyright worked like patents, Disney wouldn't have a monopoly on the Star Wars franchise Patents tend to be super-broad, so instead they'd have a monopoly on all space-related fictional media.
- toasterlovin 2y agoThere's a pretty fundamental difference between patents and copyright that I think justifies copyright being longer: a copyrighted work could not exist without its creator. IE, the Beatles catalog would not exist without the 4 Beatles, specifically. However patents are discoveries and can be discovered by other people.
- tombert 2y agoI don't disagree, though I would argue that bullshit like "design patents" blur that line somewhat. Even within patents, you're not supposed to be able to patent a "fact", which is why most math is non-patentable, and it gets into kind of weird territory when you get into stuff like algorithms: is an algorithm part of mathematics and therefore a fact and therefore non-patentable? or is it closer to an invention and engineering, and therefore should be patented? Or is coding "creative" enough to where we should actually be copyrighting algorithms? I have no idea the answer to that question, or where the line should be drawn (though I gravitate towards the "math" side). I don't know where I'm going with this; intellectual property law is weird.
- toasterlovin 2y agoYeah, as in all things, the categories start to blur at the edges. Most algorithms seem like mathematical discoveries to me, whereas the source code for a piece of software has pretty clear corollaries to copyrighted works like novels (including passing the test that I propose: it could not exist without it's creator). I kind of think that patents should not exist. I'm not a scholar in the area, but I am not aware of good evidence that, without patents, we would be bereft of the many inventions of human history and especially the last 200 years. And actually, the open source movement demonstrates that there is a very strong human impulse that will create and invent things without material recompense. My reading of patent history is that people who were inventing things anyway wanted a way to profit from it, not that there was a lack of invention and patents were arrived at as a solution to that problem. Perhaps someone could object that companies are responsible for a lot of invention and they need to be incentivized in a way that individual inventors do not. But I'm not convinced that making a better mousetrap isn't enough of an incentive. After all, companies spend an incredible amount of money on sales and marketing (usually a larger line item than R&D on a company's income statement) and neither of those gives you a legally enforced competitive advantage. I think the best argument for patents is to encourage drug discovery, since the costs are enormous due to the testing requirements. But if the main cost is in testing, then perhaps the solution is to require that copycat medications also go through the testing process, at least for some period of time. Or just have patents for drugs but not for other things. Or just have the government engage in drug discovery and validation directly (normally I'm against the government doing stuff, but I'm not convinced that the lack of a profit motive would be worse than the presence of a profit motive when it comes to drug discover).
- varjag 2y agoAn R&D cycle itself can be 5 years, a 1-2 year patent approval time is typical. Industrializing research for production is at least a year, not to mention finding a market fit. And you are supposed to recoup all that in 3-5 years? Just tooling amortization can take that much.
- brookst 2y agoLots of small companies only get funding because investors believe the IP will be worth something even if the company fails. I’m not wild about our current patent situation, but we have to recognize that a less restrictive recision would impact small business pretty hard.
- mplewis 2y agoI don't care about the impact on small business. I care about the impact on real people being able to access life-saving technology.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bawolff 2y agoShoe goes on both feet though. Lots of companies are not viable due to the legal burden of one small neccesary part being patented.
- brookst 2y agoFor sure. It’s complicated, and it’s different people and companies when you get to the specifics.
- survirtual 2y agoIt is not complicated. Patents are regressive instruments of the rich to shackle minds and generate artificial scarcity over abundant goods. It is a mechanism of slavers and connected lineages, and completely puts of a boot on the neck of unconnected innovators, which are abundant in today's age. They must be abolished.
- brookst 2y agoSo if you invent something you’re cool with a giant company just stealing it and marketing it?
- procaryote 2y agoThe original point of a patent is a good one: document your work publicly and in return get a window of time to profit from said work. It was intended to improve innovation by making people not hide their work. It wasn't really designed for people patenting vague concepts, math or ideas. If you build a better mousetrap, a patent is pretty good. If you have a vague idea you might show ads in elevators, you should A: just be shot, and B: not get a patent
- codedokode 2y agoBut today with software you can publish just a generic description and do not disclose actual algorithms and formulas, so there is no value for everyone else. For example, you could patent a program that "chooses the best investment options using AI" without describing any details even if you don't know how to actually implement this. (Well after I posted this comment you can't anymore)
- matsemann 2y ago"Add something to a digital shopping cart", "Minigames on a loading screen". If I can replicate it without reading any details in your patent, it's not patent worthy.
- xienze 2y ago> For example, you could patent a program that "chooses the best investment options using AI" without describing any details even if you don't know how to actually implement this. That’s not true. I have several issued US patents and while you don’t publish the code, you certainly have to disclose enough high level details that another person versed in the art would be able to implement it.
- pembrook 2y agoPatents come from a quaint time when startup capital was non-existent. Today, they are simply a giant anchor on the speed of innovation. The software world has flourished with effectively very little patent protection and very lax IP enforcement. And in the hardware world China quickly commoditizes and copies everything, regardless of US patents anyways. The only real moats in modern capitalism come from talent, marketing, distribution, and regulation. Patents are now just a weaponized form of regulation useful for kneecapping domestic competitors. They hurt the local economy more than helping it.
- renewiltord 2y agoWell, you can live in that world by observing China. IP doesn’t exist. All things are open source. You have to be careful doing things but people still do them and a cheaper product shows up on Aliexpress the next day.
- ikekkdcjkfke 2y agoI believe apple is struggling to implement the 5g spec due to patents, how do you square that? Just confuses me
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- g_p 2y agoA lot of the patents needed to implement mobile standards are designated as "standards essential patents", meaning that the party bringing them up the table in the standards committees needs to disclose them and agree to licence them on a FRAND basis to anyone who asks (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory). In many cases there are patent pools you can license that cover large areas of the standards, without needing to negotiate each one individually. Many very fundamental parts of 4G/ 5G are patented and you'll not be able to get your device to work on the network without those patents, so Apple will have licensed those patents under FRAND for their new C1 modem.
- bawolff 2y agoSome are more obvious than others. I think that is a major problem with patents - all inventions are treated the same. However there is a big difference between something reasonably new that took a decade of r&d work to get right and a tiny change to an existing invention which took a day and is an obvious logical progession from what came before which everyone would have came up with.
- renewiltord 2y agoIndeed, therefore if an invention is “obvious” in hindsight it must be good ;)
- tzs 2y agoI once attended a patent trial and it was interesting. The defendant claimed the patent was obvious. The plaintiff had some pretty good evidence that it was in fact not obvious: • The defendant was one of the largest companies in the field with a very accomplished and impressive R&D department. The plaintiff introduced documents they got from the defendant during discovery where the CEO had called solving the specific problem that the patent solved to be vital to the future existence of their company and made solving it a top priority. Yet they failed to make any progress on it. • Two of the other largest companies in the field, also with impressive R&D departments, had also been working on this and failed to come up with anything. The jury found that the patent was obvious. What I think happened is that both plaintiff and defendant had presentations that explained to the jury what the patent did. Both presentations did a great job of finding a problem from everyday life that was kind of analogous to the problem the patent involved, and translating the patent's solution to that everyday life problem. The presentations made it easy to understand the gist of what the patent did. There's a natural tendency to mistake easy to understand for obviousness, and I think that by explaining the invention in a way that made it easy to understand it also made the jury think it was obvious. But if you don't explain the invention in a way that the jury can understand how are they supposed to be able to make decisions? This reminds me of college. Many a time I'd read some theorem named after a mathematician and think "how the heck does this obvious theorem get named after someone?". The answer is that it wasn't at all obvious when that mathematician proved it 400 years ago. I'm seeing it after 400 years of people figuring out how to present the subject in a way that makes that theorem obvious. That reminds me of a classic math joke: A professor says "It is obvious that" and writes an equation. Then he pauses, and says "...wait, is that obvious?". He goes to another board and starts deriving the equation, not saying anything while doing this. After 20 minutes he had gotten it, says "I was right! It is obvious!" and goes back and resumes his lecture.
- potamic 2y agoCould you elaborate on what the patent was or share the patent number?
- jjk166 2y agoThe patent law definition of obvious is different from the common understanding. Specifically, it only counts if it was obvious before the patent filing to a person of ordinary skill. It's actually really hard for a patent claim to be rejected for obviousness. A poking stick for pressing buttons on a TV without getting up counts as a non-obvious invention.
- whycome 2y agoFinal decision: https://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/USPTOPTABFinalDecisionAppleIncvOmniMedSciIncUSPTOPTABIPR202100453?doc_id=X1AU3C3K000000 https://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/USPTOPT...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- shakna 2y ago12 of the 23 claims invalidated by being "obvious", in light of previous patents. The rest invalidated against Apple, through "alternative claim construction". That is, Apple's reading of the patent and its specific claims, showed it was narrower in scope than their particular usage. None of this seems really surprising, and whilst it does open the door for Apple, it probably doesn't much open the door for other implementations to flourish - not without a lawyer guiding your particular tech choices.
- pjc50 2y agoThe patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10517484B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US10517484B2/en Note how similar this is to the pulse oximeter, which was invented in Japan in 1972 and patented in the US in 2004. https://www.nihonkohden.com/technology/aoyagi.html https://www.nihonkohden.com/technology/aoyagi.html https://patents.google.com/patent/US20050049469A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US20050049469A1/en
- oldgradstudent 2y ago> Note how similar this is to the pulse oximeter, which was invented in Japan in 1972 and patented in the US in 2004. How could an invention from 1972, which I assume was publically disclosed around that time, be patented in 2004? Were the details kept secret for 32 years?
- jolmg 2y agoIt's the same person in both patents, Takuo Aoyagi. You can register a patent in separate jurisdictions, because they're separate jurisdictions.
- oldgradstudent 2y agoYou can, but a patent is still limited to around 20 years. How can a 1972 invention be still be patented in 2004?
- derektank 2y agoWas the Omni MedSci patent used in any existing commercial products?
- medhir 2y agoIs this patent the only thing that is holding them back? Or are there still quite a few challenges ahead and this is merely one roadblock removed.
- arijo 2y agoYou probably can use these physics to measure many other molecules in a continuous non invasive way. This will be a revolution in personalized medicine. Ketones next please.
- aitchnyu 2y agoA search tells me its for type 1 diabetics. Are there other applications, like keto dieters?
- pbmonster 2y agoHuge market for endurance athletes. Just like heart rate and blood oxygen, blood glucose is a definitive marker whether you're going to fast or not. Having that information allows you to perform at the very edge your body is capable of performing, without ever exceeding that limit and crashing out. There have been blood glucose sensors using needles for a long time, and many sports banned them because they are a huge advantage - but they didn't want to de-factor force every athlete to constantly prick an IV under their skin and then run around with it for hours. Once those come in smart watches, every semi-advanced runner (and those who'd like to feel like one) will need one.
- paulcole 2y agoEndurance athletes are a small market and the market for endurance athletes who would benefit from a CGM is even smaller. > every semi-advanced runner (and those who'd like to feel like one) will need one This, however, is the truth. Every semi-advanced runner (and wannabe) knows that they need to run more, run slower on most of their runs, run fast occasionally, and eat well in order to improve their performance. But they’ll buy literally anything that might offer them an “edge” instead.
- pbmonster 2y ago> Endurance athletes are a small market and the market for endurance athletes who would benefit from a CGM is even smaller. It's not that small. Garmin made billions in revenue here, expanding it on the process. Most of their customers don't really need blood oxygen either, but they all have it anyway.
- tehjoker 2y agodoes anyone with relevant scientific background know how accurate this kind of sensor could potentially be?
- m463 2y agothat's an interesting question. there's sort of a usefulness threshold, and then there's a "can calculate insulin" threshold. I think a LOT of people could benefit from plain high, medium, low with the understanding that you wouldn't make insulin decision based on it.
- GeekyBear 2y agoI have a friend who tried one of the invasive continuous glucose monitors and finding out which common foods spiked their blood sugar the most and the least was useful.
- bythreads 2y agoPretty accurate since this works of averages - discarding outliners and norming get you close to the actual number pretty quickly - also with glucose your're interested in fluctuations more than absolutes
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 2y agoProbably accurate enough to learn how your body responds to different foods and exercise, to help prevent pre-diabetes, to help with general weight loss, and to help endurance athletes in their training. But there is no universe it will be accurate enough to make insulin dosing decisions. Insulin dependent diabetics will require CGMs or finger pricks for another couple decades.
- UomoNeroNero 2y agoI manage my diabete with a "sensor" (Dexcom), an insulin pump, and a "loop device." I would NEVER use Apple Watch for therapy, and I don't think Apple wants to step into this minefield. BUT I guarantee you that having your glucose level as an (instantaneous/statistical) data point is a game-changer. There are "pre-diabetes" phases where even mild monitoring (and an alert) can be essential. And for those already in the tunnel, knowing you can have an additional "backup" alarm for hypo/hyper is very interesting (though, thinking about it, another alarm… no, better not :-D).
- rasz 2y agoWent better than last time when they were stealing Masimo patented tech.
- z3t4 2y agoPetens where invented so that the big companies wouln't steal your ideas and outcompete you in the market. I know that many of the people in this community is against patents, but they are ment to protect you guys in particular. So that your startup have a chanse against the big corporations.
- epicureanideal 2y agoSeems like they’re mostly accomplishing the opposite these days.
- bawolff 2y agoRoad to hell is paved with good intentions.
- drannex 2y agoOriginally intended, not the way they are used now, especially with the costs involved.
- szundi 2y ago[dead]
- TheDong 2y agoI really like the tool for the little guys which requires a $100/hour+ lawyer both to create, and to enforce, and to gain any other benefit out of. Patents were created not to protect the little man, but with the intent of creating a vibrant commons of knowledge. Not that the original intent matters at all at this point, we're so far from that that it's only really of interest to historians.
- hgomersall 2y agoWhere does one find a $100/hour lawyer?
- jamiek88 2y ago1998
- pyaamb 2y agoThis is great news and I can only hope for something similar to transpire with e-ink patents. fingers crossed
- silexia 2y agoI'd love to see the entire patent system abolished. Ideas are worthless, execution is everything.
- userbinator 2y agoMany of those may be actually getting close to expiry if not expired already - the technology is over 20 years old by now.
- unsupp0rted 2y agoI remember doing a report in high school chemistry class, 75 years ago, on the promise of e-ink technology.
- choeger 2y agoYou talked about e-ink in high school in 1950?
- pentamassiv 2y agoThat must have been a typo, sarcasm or trolling. Looking at the users other submissions, they seem to have parents [1], go to the gym [2] and use Tinder [3] which seems unlikely if they are ~90 years old. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38133254 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38133254 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39370419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39370419 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35006052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35006052
- unsupp0rted 2y agoIt was an exaggeration. High school was decades ago, but it feels like a million years. We thought e-ink tech would be widespread within a handful of years. Little did we know.
- zdw 2y agoNote that this isn't the Blood Oxygen sensor (Masimo being the other party in that case), which is still stuck in court.
- jurmous 2y agoThe blood oxygen sensor does work outside the US
- andriesm 2y agoWow! Really - this is the one patent-restricted feature I was hoping they were going to solve. I'm curious if a decent quality blood oxygen meter could give me additional data about my sleep apnea. I've previously trief several blood oxygen meters ordered from Amazon, and the results were very low accuracy and low confidence, and the only decent ones couldn't log data continuously over time. (At least not when I bought a few different ones a handful of years ago)
- procaryote 2y agoPerhaps you could try a Garmin watch or activity band? Afaict they don't have the same geo restriction. They're less smart as smart watches go, but in return they have better battery life
- MartinMond 2y agoDid you try the ones from https://getwellue.com/ https://getwellue.com/? In my informal testing against “medical-grade” SPO2 monitors they were accurate and they record all night long.
- buddy27 2y agoOura gives an averaged overnight blood oxygen reading, and gives insight into breathing regularity and any disturbances that it caught. https://support.ouraring.com/hc/en-us/articles/7328398760851-Blood-Oxygen-Sensing-SpO2 https://support.ouraring.com/hc/en-us/articles/7328398760851...
- bschne 2y agoAside: I was surprised to read "dental caries" in the list of things detectable through similar methods in the court filing screenshot in this post. Is that about a device that could optically detect caries from tooth surfaces through similar principles?
- schiffern 2y agoIf you've ever put a bright light up to your teeth in a mirror, it's pretty incredibly how translucent dental enamel actually is, and the level of internal detail you can see just by eye.
- nkrisc 2y agoThat’s how dentists check for issues as well: they very briefly shine a light through your teeth and capture a picture the resulting shadow.
- genewitch 2y ago"Light"? Most light won't make electrons frolic in your body.
- JoshTko 2y agoStartup opportunity for a light based 3rd tooth scanner?
- genewitch 2y agoCheck if glidewell has a patent on it first. They have the smallest intra-oral scanner I've seen, and I saw it 12 years ago. It's like a cigar. I may be wrong and they didn't make the scanner.
- hombre_fatal 2y agoAlso a nice way to realize how cracked your teeth might be.
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- oliyoung 2y agoIs this a software or hardware patent, because afaics the sensors on the newer Watches would already support this so it could just be a software update?
- codelion 2y agoYeah, the 20-year limit is definitely a thing. Maybe the 2004 patent was for some specific improvement to the original pulse oximeter tech? Patent law is tricky like that.
- tzs 2y agoI find it hard to believe that this patent was keeping Apple from adding blood glucose sensing. Yes, I know a patent on blood oxygen level sensing stopped Apple, but there is a huge difference between oxygen level sensing and glucose sensing. For oxygen sensing there are numerous readily available inexpensive stand-alone sensors available at any drug store or online. They are non-invasive and painless. Yes, a continuously wearable sensor would be better for some people but most people don't need that. Accordingly it is something that while nice wouldn't really sell a lot of watches, and so something that might not be worth licensing if it is under patent. Glucose sensing on the other hand is a literal pain to test and has ongoing costs due to consumables used for the testing. Non-invasive painless glucose sensing on a watch is a feature that would sell a lot of watches. I think demand would be high enough, even if they have to raise prices, that it would easily be worth it.
- analog31 2y agoI work in a related area. Non-invasive blood glucose has been a holy grail for analytical science, for decades, and remains a brutally difficult problem.
- crazygringo 2y agoYup. But there's hope that computational techniques can extract the signal from the noise. If they can it'll be huge. Maybe even Ozempic-huge. There's a theory of weight loss that you can objectively manage your weight by never allowing your blood sugar to go over a certain level.
- bubblethink 2y ago>There's a theory of weight loss that you can objectively manage your weight by never allowing your blood sugar to go over a certain level. That doesn't work, even if it were true. You can also manage your weight by never allowing the weight on the scale to go over a certain level.
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- ReptileMan 2y agoI have always had the following idea. Show specificalists in the domain the end result and make them reproduce it without reading the patent. If they succeed - the patent is invalid.
- jmyeet 2y agoThis is your daily reminder that patents stifle innovation. This was evident over a century ago and the poster child for this is the so-called Wright Brothers patent war [1]. The Wright brothers patented a method of flight control and then went on a litigation spree. The result was that the US was unable to build airplanes. This became a problem when the US entered World War One and the US military had to buy planes from France. This situation was so bad that the Federal government stepped in to force the major players to create a patent pool, a situation that lasted until 1977. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war
- fennecfoxy 2y ago"Celebrating Apple's spirit of innovation" yeah, sure. Why only Apple? Wouldn't this allow every smart watch/sensor manufacturer to do the same thing?
- rqtwteye 2y agoGoing through BS patents would be a nice job for Musk’s DOGE. That would do more good than firing people and two days later noticing that this people actually were important.
- bilsbie 2y agoHow accurate is it. I loved having a cgm for a few weeks. It’s over the counter now. The strangest thing was keeping my blood sugar spikes really low but still gaining weight. I didn’t think my body could really store fat without a spike but apparently it can.
- bobmcnamara 2y agoConsider the long term sugar available as integrating the curve, minus a basal rate, minus additional expenditures. The spikes don't help either.
- wdb 2y agoI wish there was a way to measure blood pressure via an Apple Watch :) Don't think that's feasible
- crossroadsguy 2y agoAnd will those reading features be available in Apple Watches just by virtues of you owning (or buying) the hardware or it will be behind a subscription (partially or fully)?