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Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by eweise on Monday December 18, 2023 @03:14PM (#38687559)
From NYTimes "In court, Masimo detailed how Apple poached its top executives and more than a dozen other employees before later releasing a watch with pulse oximeter capabilities — which measures the percentage of oxygen that red blood cells carry from the lungs to the body — that were patented by Masimo."

Doesn't sound like they accidentally stepped on a vague patent to me.

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by ceejayoz on Monday December 18, 2023 @03:21PM (#38687643)
Does anyone know what specifically Masimo invented that Apple infringed upon? Pulse oximetry was in standard practice before the company existed, and Masimo's Wikipedia article doesn't mention Apple anywhere.
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by 13of40 on Monday December 18, 2023 @03:40PM (#38687901)
This lists 10,912,502 and 10,945,648 as the patents, but if you get into the details the original complaint lists several more:

https://www.usitc.gov/system/files?file=secretary/fed_reg_no...

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by freejazz on Monday December 18, 2023 @04:26PM (#38688545)
If only there was a patent that explained specifically what Masimo invented, otherwise no one would ever know!
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by ceejayoz on Monday December 18, 2023 @04:45PM (#38688798)
Given there’s debate even amongst high powered patent lawyers, a layperson-friendly explanation of the specifics rather than “try to parse the patent applications” might still be somewhat valuable.
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by freejazz on Monday December 18, 2023 @05:10PM (#38689086)
My snark is mostly directed at people who lament the patent system as precluding innovation wherein it actually does the opposite by forcing public disclosure and precluding the use of trade secrets to protect such information indefinitely.
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by stefan_ on Monday December 18, 2023 @11:29PM (#38691821)
Is it useful to challenge you to look at one of these patents and actually try to build the thing? They don't even specify the wavelength of LEDs you should use, instead preferring to claim all imaginable wavelengths. They describe (and claim) what are very complicated digital signal processing algorithms in a few highly opaque paragraphs.

Sorry, nothing was forcibly publicly disclosed here. These guys got patent protection, the public got nothing.

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by freejazz on Tuesday December 19, 2023 @01:03AM (#38692392)
>Is it useful to challenge you to look at one of these patents and actually try to build the thing?

I don't particularly think so. Patents are meant for a person of "ordinary skill" in the art. I don't make these devices. I'm not a person equipped to offer an opinion on whether the patent discloses sufficient information.

>Sorry, nothing was forcibly publicly disclosed here. These guys got patent protection, the public got nothing.

The way the invention works is what is disclosed. Patents aren't blueprints. It's even more ridiculous that you are making this comment when Apple seems to have infringed.

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by simondotau on Monday December 18, 2023 @03:53PM (#38688083)
Either the patent system is catastrophically broken or it isn't. I have always contended that it is, and I don't get to ignore that right now because Apple appears to have engaged in shenanigans.

(I don't think patents need to be entirely eliminated, but they need drastic reform. The patent system should be an incentive to small inventors, not a pay-to-play shield for big corporations. Obviously eliminating software/algorithm patents, eliminating "thing but with a computer" patents, shortening the entitlement period, mandating FRAND with full transparency around licensing fees, possibly even capping lifetime license fee revenue at $100m or so.)

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by freejazz on Monday December 18, 2023 @04:27PM (#38688560)
How is exactly is FRAND pro-small time inventor and not pro-efficiently infringing big businesses?
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by simondotau on Monday December 18, 2023 @04:39PM (#38688711)
It makes compliance more straightforward with less opportunity for strategic manipulation. It makes damages easier to quantify.
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by freejazz on Monday December 18, 2023 @05:09PM (#38689071)
None of those are pro small time inventor, those are all benefits to big business and lower the friction of infringing, i.e. making it efficient. It turns patents into an after-the-fact licensing scheme, where businesses can infringe all they want until a small time inventor can muster the capital to actually enforce their own patents. Your response seems to indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of the basic dynamics that influence behavior on both sides of patent litigation.
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by simondotau on Tuesday December 19, 2023 @06:28AM (#38694352)
Your line of argumentation seems specious. If you have evidence to show that making compliance more efficient encourages non-compliance, I'd like to see it. It seems to me that if a corporation is inclined to knowingly abuse a small inventor's patent, they'll do so regardless of how efficient the compliance process is.

Perhaps I don't know the basic dynamics of patent litigation. You're an expert, could you enlighten me?

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by freejazz on Tuesday December 19, 2023 @11:02AM (#38697268)
>Perhaps I don't know the basic dynamics of patent litigation. You're an expert, could you enlighten me?

Yeah, FRAND is pro-big business. It removes the upper limit on damages, i.e. minimizes the risk a business faces by infringing, which therefore minimizes any incentive to license a patent. It also reduces the incentive for a patentee to enforce their patent, as it takes ~$2-3m to litigate against a company like Apple through trial (not even appeals). Because of the upfront costs to enforcement, any small-time inventor is going to need a financier to back their case.

>Your line of argumentation seems specious.

My argument seems specious? You keep saying compliance... compliance with what? you haven't even made an argument, you just associate a few buzzwords and say "thing bad". You haven't explained anyway how FRAND and "compliance" are pro-small time inventor.

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by simondotau on Tuesday December 19, 2023 @08:37PM (#38704458)
If you have evidence to show that making compliance more efficient encourages non-compliance, I'd like to see it.

And yeah, I’m using the word compliance in the straightforward, obvious way. If that’s a problem for you, I don’t think this discussion is ever going to be useful.

Think about it. If legislation can make FRAND mandatory, it can also make the penalties sufficiently unfavourable to large corporations. Perhaps, and I’m just spitballing here, back pay for non-compliance could have a defined multiplier. Then there could be an additional multiplier for non-compliance after the date a complaint is made by the patent holder. And a further additional multiplier for non-compliance if the corporation has revenues over $100 million annually.

That’s literally the first idea that came to my dumbass ignorant head and I’m sure there’s a dozen much better ones out there. The key point is that the system can be built in such a way that a patent holder doesn’t need a team of lawyers with clever tricks to be entitled to favourable outcomes. Standardise it all and you reduce the dynamic range of advantage between parties of different size.

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by freejazz on Wednesday December 20, 2023 @03:58PM (#38713553)
>And yeah, I’m using the word compliance in the straightforward, obvious way. If that’s a problem for you, I don’t think this discussion is ever going to be useful.

I'm a patent litigator - nobody uses the word compliance in this field. It's not me that is making this conversation difficult. It's your apparent ignorance and obtuseness.

> Think about it. If legislation can make FRAND mandatory, it can also make the penalties sufficiently unfavourable to large corporations

Do you even know what FRAND stands for? Is this a joke?

>Perhaps, and I’m just spitballing here, back pay for non-compliance could have a defined multiplier. Then there could be an additional multiplier for non-compliance after the date a complaint is made by the patent holder. And a further additional multiplier for non-compliance if the corporation has revenues over $100 million annually.

Compliance WITH WHAT???

>The key point is that the system can be built in such a way that a patent holder doesn’t need a team of lawyers with clever tricks to be entitled to favourable outcomes.

Patentees don't need clever tricks, they just need to prove infringement. That's the only hard part. You skip past that entirely. I think that's what you mean by compliance, but you don't seem to have any idea how any of this actually works. Which is bizarre considering you are offering recommendations on how to improve something that you do not understand.

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by simondotau on Thursday December 21, 2023 @02:48AM (#38718051)
> Compliance WITH WHAT???

With the licensing of patents? Duh?

> I'm a patent litigator

Ah. I'm reminded of the famous quote — "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Community discussions are wher you talk with other people, not to win on a technicality in a courtroom.

> nobody uses the word compliance in this field

I'm sorry that the word compliance isn't sufficiently in-group for you. Perhaps tell people that you want to gate-keep rather than discuss, as it'll save other people a lot of time.

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by freejazz on Thursday December 21, 2023 @11:07AM (#38722280)
>With the licensing of patents? Duh?

Licensing isn't a compliance matter. There's no enforcement entity. It's all just civil litigation and party's deciding things on their own.

>Ah. I'm reminded of the famous quote — "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Community discussions are wher you talk with other people, not to win on a technicality in a courtroom.

I'm not trying to win on a technicality here, all I did was explain to you that your understanding of patent incentives was wrong and based on incorrect facts.

>I'm sorry that the word compliance isn't sufficiently in-group for you. Perhaps tell people that you want to gate-keep rather than discuss, as it'll save other people a lot of time.

It's not that it isn't sufficiently in group, it's that it is without meaning in this context.

> Perhaps tell people that you want to gate-keep rather than discuss, as it'll save other people a lot of time.

I've been engaging in discourse with you. You refuse to come to the table and recognize what's actually going on, just repeating yourself and your misunderstandings.

>Ah. I'm reminded of the famous quote — "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

You have no idea what you are talking about. I'm plaintiff side. Anything pro small-inventor would be for my own benefit. Getting my client a license is preferable to trial. The thing is, the big companies never want to license because they can just force me to have to take them to trial, where we risk losing, or losing on appeal. You'd behove yourself to actually attempt to grok at least one of my posts instead of just typing "but compliance"

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by simondotau on Thursday December 21, 2023 @07:56PM (#38729488)
> Licensing isn't a compliance matter.

It literally is. I'm sorry that you can't English. I'm out.

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by freejazz on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:05PM (#38730491)
Its not because there is no statutory licensing scheme that you would have to comply with... bizarre that you are saying I can't english. No one uses compliance that way. And if your point was that licensing is a compliance matter, you could have said so given the numerous times I asked what you meant by "compliance" in this context. Apparently you just mean "getting whatever is demanded". FRAND doesn't achieve that because it's not what the small-time inventor wants, it's what the big-time infringers want. It makes it trivial for them to infringe and they pay only what they would have had to had they obtained a license. It removes the willful punitive damages standard, which is already hard to achieve. That would mean you could put someone on notice that they are infringing, and they can say fuck off, with no recourse for them down the line. How is that pro small-time inventor???
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by cyanydeez on Monday December 18, 2023 @03:36PM (#38687844)
Sounds like they were reviewing patents and VP bios.
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by varispeed on Monday December 18, 2023 @03:24PM (#38687676)
> Apple poached its top executives

What is this? Are they some form of slaves? If company doesn't want its employees "poached" they should pay them enough money so they don't think of "switching sides".

This notion that corporations can own people and their brains should stop.

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by epistasis on Monday December 18, 2023 @03:25PM (#38687696)
The notion is not that Masimo owned those executives or employees, the notion is that Apple needed the particular skills and expertise of those employees in order to build what they built.
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by throwaway894345 on Monday December 18, 2023 @03:31PM (#38687772)
Executives aren't usually the ones with specific technical skills about the arrangement of sensors and so on. If you were looking to infringe like this, it would be better just to poach engineers.
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by epistasis on Monday December 18, 2023 @03:33PM (#38687801)
But how does Apple get access to those employees, when they have been dealing with the executives? Through the executives bringing a team over.
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by simondotau on Monday December 18, 2023 @03:53PM (#38688103)
Has that been alleged?
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by kevin_thibedeau on Monday December 18, 2023 @09:14PM (#38690994)
LinkedIn sells to data brokers. You can get a list of past and present employees and cherry pick the ones of value.
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by varispeed on Monday December 18, 2023 @05:22PM (#38689229)
Still, you don't own people. People should be free to switch employers if they don't like their current ones.

If we going that route, we might be bringing back slavery by the backdoor.

The Masimo case should have been thrown out.

Just imagine you are an engineer with amazing and unique skillset but you were unfortunate enough to pick wrong employer. You get a new offer from someone who sees your potential and could give you tools you need to help you do what you love.

With this kind of precedent, companies won't touch you with a barge pole even if you ticked all the boxes and you really don't want to work where you are.

It's bad for workers and for progress in general.

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by epistasis on Monday December 18, 2023 @06:03PM (#38689638)
I phrased my comment poorly. It's not only that they built something similar, it's that they built the patented tech.

Hiring a team and rebuilding something that is not patented, or that skirts the edge of a patent, that's just fine. Hiring the team and building the patented thing is bad, not because of hiring the team, but because of building the patented thing. That it's the same team is just evidence that it infringes on the patent.

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by varispeed on Monday December 18, 2023 @06:47PM (#38689978)
Given what is being approved as a patent these days (basically anything goes in), I wouldn't consider this as an exception.

Generally speaking, the patents should describe the invention in such a way that anyone competent in the field could recreate it. So I don't see how the fact the Apple has hired that team has any relevance to this.

Maybe the patents should have been invalidated too.

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by zmmmmm on Monday December 18, 2023 @10:34PM (#38691490)
It undermines any argument that the technology was so obvious it didn't deserve a patent when you are going to the company that owns the patent to poach the staff to implement your own. If it is that obvious, why aren't you just hiring engineers off the open market?
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by drno123 on Monday December 18, 2023 @03:20PM (#38687630)
Pulse oxymeters exist for at least 30 years. What kind of patent does Masimo hold?
Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by dharmab on Monday December 18, 2023 @03:24PM (#38687682)
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10945648B2/en?oq=US-1094...

It's fairly specific about an arrangement of sensors with specific capabilities.

Re:Apple halts US sales of Watch before Christmas after losi... by fuzzbazz on Monday December 18, 2023 @03:39PM (#38687895)
If they make a version with only three photodiodes this patent will not apply.