Masimo v. Apple
Kiani, an electrical engineer by training, had founded the Irvine company Masimo in 1989. Over the next three decades, he and his colleagues built Masimo into an industry leader in pulse oximetry, used to take readings of the amount of oxygen in a person’s blood — a crucial, sometimes life-saving, measurement.
[…]
Kiani and the Apple executives had long, involved, and, what felt to him, productive meetings. It even seemed that Apple was interested in acquiring Masimo. “They asked us, ‘Where do we see the market going?,’ ‘How does the tech work?,’ to share with them the regulatory pathways. All the leadership was there, saying, ‘whatever you need, we’re going to work this out.’”
[…]
According to the complaint in his case, unbeknownst to Kiani, back when the two companies started meeting, Apple hatched a plan, known internally as Project Everest, to obtain or emulate Masimo’s technology without paying Kiani a cent. Instead of acquiring Masimo, Apple could simply raid its brain trust. In at least one email exchange between executives, Apple referred to its strategy as “smart recruiting.”
There have been stories like this for many years, though I can’t seem to find the links at the moment.
Brian Merchant (via Hacker News):
It turns out the United States International Trade Commission agrees. It just sided with Kiani, issuing a ruling that the Apple Watch contains technology that violates Masimo’s patents, and handing down an exclusion order that, if it stands, would result in the devices being banned from import into the United States unless the infringing technology is removed.
The ruling upholds an initial finding in January that determined Apple had infringed on Masimo’s pulse-oximetry technology, which allows users to take readings of blood-oxygen levels. Earlier this year, a separate federal trial over whether Apple had profited from trade secrets stolen from Masimo, to the tune of $1.85 billion, ended in a hung jury.
Previously:
Update (2024-09-26): Jason Snell:
Joe Kiani, the company’s firebrand founder and CEO, has resigned as CEO after losing a shareholder vote and being kicked off the company’s board of directors.
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Bloomberg’s excellent financial columnist Matt Levine has some extra analysis about the series of steps that could lead to a founder and board chair to completely lose control—it involves unhappy shareholders and freezing out a board you disagree with.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s soon a settlement in the patent dispute over the blood oxygen sensors in recent Apple Watch models that’s left the feature disabled for new watches sold in the U.S. this year. My understanding is that Kiani was single-mindedly obsessed with fighting Apple over this.
Update (2024-10-28): Blake Brittain:
Apple, convinced a federal jury on Friday that early versions of health monitoring tech company Masimo’s, smartwatches infringe two of its design patents as part of a broader intellectual property dispute between the companies.
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Apple’s attorneys told the court the “ultimate purpose” of its lawsuit was not money, but to win an injunction against sales of Masimo’s smartwatches after an infringement ruling.
Via John Gruber:
This victory doesn’t change the ITC import ban that prevents Apple from enabling the blood oxygen sensor on watches sold in the U.S. after December 2023. It might have, if Apple had been able to win a verdict holding that Masimo’s current watches also infringe patents held by Apple.
Update (2024-11-06): Juli Clover:
Apple and Masimo are back in a California court this week for a bench trial that will see Masimo arguing that Apple illegally poached its employees and stole trade secrets when developing the Apple Watch.
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Note that the Masimo trade secret lawsuit against Apple is separate from both an ITC injunction preventing the sale of Apple Watch models with a blood oxygen sensor and a patent infringement case that Apple filed against Masimo.
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Oh no. If this proves to be true, maybe Microsoft won after-all as their business ethos was adopted by Apple.
To be fair to Apple it doesn’t go against Think Different and they never said Don’t Be Evil.
I wish I understood the differences in the patents more. I don't understand how the FitBit and Apple Watch implementation differ, which seems like the same method as over the finger oximeters.
