[SirensOfTitan]

Could someone knowledgeable on the patent in question chime in on its defensibility? Masimo doesn’t seem like a patent troll here, they sell products, including a watch that take advantage of their patents presumably; however, I’m curious how broad the patent in question actually is.

[DannyBee]

You are correct Masimo is not a patent troll.

Having tested a bunch of of fingertip SpO2 sensors for $reasons, i will say they are the real deal.

In particular, the most important thing they have accomplished (though i don't think apple uses it) is that they have fingertip SpO2 meters that work ~fine during exercise.

Most fingertip SpO2 meters cannot handle movement at all, or a very small amount (apple's watch requires you remain completely still). Those that claim to work give mostly nonsense results.

Meanwhile, Masimo has fingertip meters that work fine while, say, biking, for example.

Staring at the particular patent, it looks like patent that covers a specific arrangement of sensors and processors, which i can believe is important to make something like a watch work properly.

[kemayo]

I'm not knowledgeable on the patent, but the one I've seen referenced is: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10912502B2/en

It's basically "take this arrangement of sensors and put it on a smartwatch". So a lot of my opinion of it is going to rest on whether the arrangement of sensors is actually novel, or whether this is Masimo taking a long-existing setup and saying "but with a computer!" like all the most-mockable obvious patents.