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Apple is now banned from selling its latest Apple Watches in the US (www.theverge.com)

submitted 11 months ago by remington to c/technology

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[–] jarfil 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

This is not a vote, these are facts you can check yourself:

Between 2006 and 2022: Massimo kept building a portfolio of "provisional filings", without filing a final version that would get published
2022: Massimo launches its own watch, still without having filed for final patents
later in 2022: Apple announces a watch with similar functionality
shortly after Apple's announcement: suddenly Massimo decides to file final versions of a slew of patents it had kept in the "provisional" stage for 15+ years

There is no counter-argument.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 4 points 11 months ago

You're missing the part where Apple initially wanted to partner with Masimo and when they refused, decided to poach several employees from Masimo to develop the competing product.

Masimo seems to have a legitimate case here, and Apple is definitely in the wrong, as they knowingly attempted to copy Masimo's product. The late publication of the patents could be due to literally anything, but it doesn't seem to be done willfully to 'trap' Apple into this lawsuit. Because of that, I'd argue that this is a bit of a fault in the broken patent system, but that Masimo is not deliberately patent trolling here.

[–] ursakhiin 3 points 11 months ago

If Masimo hadn't finalized the patent, Apple would have filed it's own similar one and the reverse would have happened. It was literally their only option when confronted with a tech giant who is notoriously litigious. If that happened, Apple would have shut down an actual medical device company through constant legal battles Masimo couldn't afford to win.

This isn't trolling because Masimo is actually using the patent and the patent is specific. Patent trolling is filing a bunch of broad patents and hoarding them, often with no intent to develop a product, for the express purpose of either filing law suits or to stifle competition. Apple is often considered a troll for that latter reason.

Masimo would likely allow Apple to license the patent. But Apple tried to bypass paying licensing fees entirely and it's still doing so. Masimo was well within it's rights to protect itself from Apple, though. Unfortunately, this is what a smaller company protecting itself from a larger one looks like in the US.