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Apple was in a patent dispute over this feature with Massimo. Their workaround is to calculate blood oxygen on the iPhone, using the sensors from Apple Watch.
by brandonb 1y ago
Apple was in a patent dispute over this feature with Massimo. Their workaround is to calculate blood oxygen on the iPhone, using the sensors from Apple Watch.
The Apple Watch hardware is otherwise the same. The back of the watch shines light of a specific wavelength into your skin and measures the reflected light. Heart rate sensing uses green (525 nm) and infrared (850–940 nm) light; blood oxygen sensing added a red light at 660 nm in 2020.
The iPhone will now calculate the ratio of absorbed red to infrared light, then apply calibration constants from experimental data to estimate blood oxygen saturation.
More detailed writeup on how the technology works is here: https://www.empirical.health/metrics/oxygen/ https://www.empirical.health/metrics/oxygen/
- BallsInIt 1y agoSoftware patents are a scourge.
- sneak 1y agoThe whole concept of software patents is a hack; as I understand it algorithms as a rule cannot be patented, so the system running the algorithm is patented instead. This seems to illustrate the absurdity of that workaround.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y agoI would be a bit more sympathetic if this was not about a trillion dollar company who poached some employees rather than engage in a licensing deal.
- spogbiper 1y ago25 employees including the CTO, and then bought a building nearby to Masimo's office for them to work in. At least according to the CEO of Masimo in public statements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR1o8EoW-Eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR1o8EoW-Eg
- thebruce87m 1y agoSounds good for the employees, so go Apple?
- spogbiper 1y agoYes, very good for the employees. Apple even offered them 2x their salaries to leave Masimo.
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoYes "very good", until Apple decides to mass-layoff them, because now, owning the valuable core IP and having killed their primary competitor in the field, Apple can do whatever they want and get away with it because those employees have nowhere else to go in the area. 200+ IQ move </slow_clap>. How people on HN can support monopolization of markets and killing of competition is beyond me, since in the end it always bites them in the ass (see recent mass layoffs in the industry), yet this lesson seems to be quickly forgotten.
- johnfn 1y agoIs there evidence of Apple doing this in the past?
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y agoApple is infamous for driving other companies into bankruptcy to acquire their assets. For a single example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_Technology
- jachee 1y agoThat’s not evidence of Apple doing mass layoffs, though.
- 1y ago
- OkayPhysicist 1y agoIt's really easy to avoid your employees being "poached": treat them well, and pay them better.
- gibolt 1y agoI generally agree, but the company likely doesn't have those funds. Considering the largest player (Apple) stands to make way more from it than you and just works around your patent. Not arguing Apple shouldn't poach, just that your suggestion doesn't work.
- OkayPhysicist 1y agoThe company made a billion dollars in profit last year. I doubt Apple was willing to pay anywhere near that amount to hire an employee.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoThey did not earn $1B in profit in the last year. Or 5. https://companiesmarketcap.com/masimo/earnings/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/masimo/earnings/ https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MASI/masimo/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MASI/masimo/net-in...
- runako 1y agoCheck the ratio of SG&A to R&D spend at MASI. They have money, they just choose not to spend it on engineering.
- boringg 1y agoWow you must work for a company with incredibly deep pockets. No way can massimo compete on salary with apple. Only people in the game who can do that are google facebook apple chatgpt etc.
- scarface_74 1y ago
- scarface_74 1y agoI hate the word “poaching”. A company offered employees more money in exchange for their labor. I see no issue. Would you have preferred what happened in the Jobs era where 7 of the largest tech firms colluded not to hire from each other’s company?
- Teever 1y agoApple is able to do what they do now because of the shit they got away with in the Jobs era. Because they hobbled competitors and innovation then they're able to do it now. It's really hard to determine how detrimental their actions have been to the job market for software engineers. It is entirely possible that every software engineer is worse off because Apple severely distorted the market and prevented many competitors from growing to be competitors to Apple and what ever offer Apple made to these people pales to what they could be making if Jobs hadn't done what he did.
- JustExAWS 1y agoYou mean they hobbled poor little competitors like Google, Adobe, and the other tech companies that agreed to it? Apple was actually one of the smaller companies at the time. How is all Apple’s fault? And are you really saying that the iPhone wouldn’t have happened if Apple hadn’t gotten into these agreements? In your alternate universe would Nokia or Rim (who wasn’t involved in the agreement) still been relevant?
- Teever 1y agoNo, they hobbled the competitors that their staff could have formed if they had made more money to do so. That collusion between these big companies to deny their employees a wage driven by free markets allowed those companies to accrue wealth and prevent competition from forming. That's terrible for their employees, that's terrible for the consumer.
- scarface_74 1y agoHow did their collusion stop a new company from offering more money than the depressed wages that the collusion was causing? Alternatively, if hypothetically without the collusion do you think the upper wage pressure would I have materially affected those companies bottom lines to not create the products that made them profitable?
- 0x457 1y agoI don't how can you patent "read sensor, and process readings on device" I get if how it's actual sensor was patented, not "read and compute"
- nradov 1y agoHave you read the patent?
- 0x457 1y agoYes. Apple is working around that patent by moving computing to a different place. I don't think it's something that should be patentable.
- burnerthrow008 1y agoMy reading of the claims is that the novelty is having the processor integrated in the sensor protrusion. So processing the data elsewhere (particularly on a different device) would avoid infringement.
- QuinnyPig 1y agoAnd then let their product lose the feature for multiple years rather than settling for some amount of money that was absolutely trivial to them.
- MangoToupe 1y ago> I would be a bit more sympathetic if this was not about a trillion dollar company who poached some employees rather than engage in a licensing deal. Obviously the people who suffer are customers. There isn't a single instance where IP helps them.
- adrr 1y agoWhy would they license something that was invented 50+ years ago? No one else pays a license for it. Not even valid patent as the company couldn't prove it court it was a valid patent and the case ended up being hung jury with all but one jury that held out. Only reason they couldn't import it because Travesty is the ITC is allowed to block imports without going to court. Banning imports shouldn't be done by some government institution and should be handled by the court system.
- terminalshort 1y agoPoaching employees is a good thing and should always be allowed. Companies have the means to prevent this at any time. It's called contract employment. But if they insist on being able to fire me at any time, they can eat the downside of that too.
- burnerthrow008 1y agoWow. So you view corporate employees like serfs bound to the land, not allowed to seek better opportunities for themselves? That’s kind of… dark.
- wyldfire 1y agoThey were "poached" or the employees negotiated their value? "anti-poaching" is how big tech companies described their anti-competitive agreements [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
- jajuuka 1y agoThey were very clearly poached. They were chosen for their specific knowledge of a product Apple wanted to make and Apple (being one of the wealthiest companies in Silicon Valley and ever) was able to throw out whatever number to get what they wanted. They even put them in an office near their old job. This isn't a case of "they went looking for a better job". Have you done zero reading on this story?
- anonu 1y agoI dont think the patent in question is for software: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10912502B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US10912502B2/en
- Disposal8433 1y agoEvery workaround I've seen for the past 30 years feel like a "Shabbat elevator" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat_elevator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat_elevator) I'm not using the elevator because I'm not pushing the button because it's always moving. Edit: I've always hated patents too, don't get me wrong.
- johndhi 1y agoIsn't this hardware though? :-)
- cmiles74 1y agoIMHO, the problem is that if you are wealthy enough then you don't need to worry about patents. I also think these patents are, on the whole, not great. But here the one company legally got the patent and the another, richer company hired away their talent and paid them to find a workaround to avoid licensing. Smaller companies will continue to license the patent. Few tears will be shed for Massimo (or Qualcomm) but the next victim could be a much smaller company, maybe one that would be more of a competitor. I don't like the current patent regime but I do believe enforcement should apply to everyone, not just players who lack the money to rig the game.
- zik 1y agoIt's a patent on a physical process for measuring blood oxygen. It's not a software patent.
- Angostura 1y ago> The iPhone will now calculate the ratio of absorbed red to infrared light, then apply calibration constants from experimental data to estimate blood oxygen saturation. Sorry, maybe I missed it - but source for this?
- chedabob 1y agoIt's in the Apple PR https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/08/an-update-on-blood-oxygen-for-apple-watch-in-the-us/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/08/an-update-on-blood-ox... > sensor data from the Blood Oxygen app on Apple Watch will be measured and calculated on the paired iPhone
- clint 1y agoThe literal article that is the sole focus of this entire thread?
- unglaublich 1y agoCrazy that this is a 'patent'. We did this experiment in high school 30 years ago.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- spogbiper 1y agoalmost as crazy as a patent for a rectangle with rounded corners
- mbirth 1y agoYou mean a Squircle®
- robertoandred 1y agoThat's of course not what the patent was about.
- shagie 1y agoYou can also patent the shape of a bottle. https://patents.google.com/patent/USD48160S/en https://patents.google.com/patent/USD48160S/en (yes, its an old one). These fall into the classification of design patent which covers ornamental non-functional elements of a particular item. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent Design patents also cover typefaces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protection_of_typefaces#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti... -- note that typefaces cannot be copyrighted in the United States Design patents differ from a utility patent which covers how something works.
- BugsJustFindMe 1y agoPhenomenal that the patent is only violated by doing it with the watch cpu but not by funneling the data to a separate cpu. The surest sign that it's a bullshit patent.
- kube-system 1y agoThey're all like that. Patents are pretty specific.
- abirch 1y agoIf they're not very specific there's frequently prior art.
- sieabahlpark 1y ago[dead]
- extraduder_ire 1y agoSomeone else linked the patent in question and it seems to be about a wearable device. The iphone is carried on your person and not worn as part of the same device, as I understand it. I still don't think it's a valid patent.
- alooPotato 1y agoI wonder if they could take it one step further. Do the measurements on the watch, do the calculation on the iPhone, send the results back to the watch for display. Technically all the work is done on the iPhone and the watch is just the IO device.
- ilyagr 1y agoAccording to the link, the patents in question expire in 2028.