Link to their smartwatch: https://www.masimopersonalhealth.com/products/masimo-w1 It's actually in the same price range as the Apple Watch Series 9.
So their reluctance to license the patent to Apple may be probably partly about competing with Apple, partly about Apple's alleged bad-faith behavior in past dealings with them, and possibly also disinclination on the part of Apple to pay them for a license. But not about Apple's retail price point per unit.
> He clashed with managers, demanded multimillion-dollar budgets and wanted the ability to hire his own engineers without approval, Hotelling said in a deposition that was part of a court fight between the companies. After weeks of discussions, Lamego left Apple. After his stint at Apple, Lamego ended up starting his own company, True Wearables. In 2016, he released a device called the Oxxiom, which he called the world’s first continuous and disposable blood-oxygen sensor. Masimo sued the start-up and won a court order blocking it from selling the product.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/the-late-night-ema...
It's not about just any blood oxigen measuring tech, there's various ways you can do it and apparently Apple's newest watch is implementing a very accurate technique developed by Masimo.
Those $20 devices exist because measuring blood oxygen accurately via light refracted through flesh is way easier than via light reflect off the flesh(especially as you move around), which is what this fight is all about.
>Seems odd that they couldn’t use their weight to secure a license.
Or, you know, pay for it? It's not like Apple is scrapping for change behind the couch cushions.
I’m not sure it’s very technologically complex though. Seems like the patent just covers the positioning of a few sensors. It’s about as silly as allowing “multitouch” to be patented…
Without a doubt. I would imagine the number of people that would actually choose to not buy an Apple Watch because it doesn’t have a blood oxygen sensor is really really small. I also believe it’s likely that people considering upgrading an existing Apple Watch will not be deterred by the removal of the feature. My sense is that Apple felt that it had basically nothing to lose. They were going to incur some legal costs in this anyway, why not let that play out? Remove it if you lose the battle. If you lose out on maybe <500 watch sales no biggie, you still have the optics to your customer base that you exhausted all options to keep the feature.
Their devices tie in to hospital EMRs, do brain activity monitoring, and all sorts of other thing’s that aren’t in the same ballpark as an Apple Watch.
The patent holder is a medical device company that is probably used to much more expensive price points than consumer tech. So having a $300 watch available that does o2 readings as much as a multi thousand dollar medical device is probably something they aren’t super thrilled about being in the market.