[albntomat0]

Is there a concrete explanation of what Masimo’s actual innovation was in their patents?

They were posted in a previous thread, and the way they were written made it unclear what was actually covered. Is Apple allegedly infringing on the idea of putting a blood oxygen sensor in a watch, a technical innovation in how to do so effectively, or something else entirely?

[upon_drumhead]

US-10192502-B2 Seems to cover using a lookup table to control the amount of light a liquid crystal on silicon device emits per pixel.

US-10945648-B2 seems to cover the heart of the issue. It specifically calls out

> four photodiodes configured to receive light emitted by the LEDs, the four photodiodes being arranged to capture light at different quadrants of tissue of a user;

Which is what I believe Apple was going to change via software disabling one.

https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/18/apple-watch-import-ban-...

Honestly it seems stretching to say the first one is patentable imho and the second one is easily changed for future hardware versions, which is why I presume Apple isn’t in licensing talks.

[xuhu]

Would it be far fetched to hope that Apple could introduce a jailbreak mechanism in the Apple Watch for the purpose of providing users the option to enable and use all photodiodes for the pulse oximeter ?

[fl0ki]

It might be simpler than that. Like many other watch and phone features, it might just depend on the user's region. Hopefully only in software, but there's also precedent for regional hardware differences.

[explaininjs]

It’s regarding the arrangement of LED’s and sensors in the watch, along with the signal processing needed to get reasonable data out of them.

My impression of the whole debacle is that Masimo hired up a bunch of smart people, they invented this tech while being paid next-to-nothing by Masimo (as Masimo didn’t have the product development chops to actually bring anything to market), Apple saw that the tech was good and just neeeed a product/marketing team, Apple tried to acquire Masimo, their CEO tried to play hard to get, so Apple ”stole” (offered compensation commensurate to their technical prowess) all the engineers who actually made the thing and just built it in house from “scratch”.

It’s a tricky case to be sure. But I’m all for the outcome where consumers get cool tech and the people who actually made it (notably not the Masimo CEO) get fair compensation for their work.

The aspect a lot of people here gloss over is that the patent that Masimo owns wasn’t actually developed by anyone currently at Masimo. Apple “owns” all the people, but Masimo “owns” their accomplishments. It’s weird.

[FireBeyond]

> My impression of the whole debacle is that Masimo hired up a bunch of smart people, they invented this tech while being paid next-to-nothing by Masimo (as Masimo didn’t have the product development chops to actually bring anything to market)

Your impression that Masimo "doesn't have product development chops to bring anything to market" is ... odd, considering Masimo is a nearly 40 year old company which has devices in most of the hospitals I see as a paramedic bringing patients in, and $2B a year in revenue.

> Apple tried to acquire Masimo, their CEO tried to play hard to get

Masimo stated in court - and Apple never challenged it - that their discussions were around partnership and licensing and tech. I have no idea where your claim that Masimo is just hurt/offended that they weren't "acquired by Apple". I can't even imagine why Masimo would be an acquisition target for Apple - there's an entire world of difference between personal healthcare and the world of ICUs, ORs and ERs that Masimo mostly plays in.

Their "Root" devices are actually some of the nicer ones I've used in healthcare - https://www.masimo.com/products/continuous/root/

There's definitely an undercurrent in a lot of these threads to paint Apple as being attacked by a patent troll.

[explaininjs]

Honestly that’s even worse. So there’s a successful company that has no problem selling its products for tens of thousands of dollars as part of a perpetuation of the insurance-industrial complex whereby folks without access to “good insurance” can’t receive simple, potentially life saving analysis, but they refuse to pay their engineers fair compensation. So then the engineers try to go to a place where they will recice fair compensation and far more people will have access to the life saving equipment they developed, but the CEO of their old company throws a hissy fit over the technology being accessible to folks besides the ultra wealthy and sues them. Disgusting.

[FireBeyond]

This makes little to no sense unless you take an absolutely literal view of the the "any price the market offers is in essence a fair market price" for the value of the engineers. You can't argue that without acknowledging that for the same reasons, until Apple offered those engineers more salary (and I don't think it was disclosed how different they were, just that someone made a comment of saying "$x is low"), then they were being paid the then-fair market value (I also think there's a very cogent argument to be had that SF engineering compensation is inflated). But leaving that aside:

Masimo makes as you note, industrial devices. The Root devices that I mention are not ever going to be used at home, even by the ultra wealthy.

I mean you are talking about devices that do CO-oximetry (effectively "arterial blood gas"), brain function monitoring, connect to ventilators (ISA capnography for intubated patients) and anesthesia machines and pushing aggregated data into EPIC. Like I said, these are devices being used in intensive care units, not simple finger pulse oximetry, reflected or otherwise.

They are not "gatekeeping" this technology for the ultra wealthy so poor Apple Watch owners (of which I am on my third) can't get access to it. They're entirely different models with different purposes, in an entirely differing market segment.

Also if you're referring to "potentially life saving analysis" with respect to pulse oximetry on the Apple Watch, which does it only on demand, and is not an FDA regulated medical device, regardless of patents, there's an exaggeration happening. Patients with chronic hypoxic and similar issues are not relying on Apple Watches to "potentially save their lives".

[explaininjs]

Do you have an idea of what “market value” is besides the value the market has assigned to a thing? I have no idea why you act like that is a bizarre take.

And why do you think engineers are making too much money while CEO’s are waking away with record profits off their backs?

All in all your argument is just anti-commoner pro-elite system gamers, and if that’s how you see things so be it. But I think people should be able to have their pulses measured even if the FDA doesn’t approve and they don’t have chronic hypoxia and they don’t want to integrate with Epic and they only need it on demand. I’ve had family members that were told they must go through complicated insurance processes to get fancy tens of thousands of dollar pulse measures, but then got by just fine with the watch. Masimo wants to put an end to that to secure their own profits, and this entire site loves them for it.

[angus-prune]

The impression I got was that Massimo was paying fairly for the development team of a medical product.

As soon as the technology had a consumer application, the market value of the expertise changed drastically.

[matwood]

To add some anecdata to your story, I looked up a job on Masimo's site when this story first came out. $190k for a senior algo/signal processing programmer - PhD preferred - in CA. Masimo had no hope when big-tech turned their focus towards these types of programmers.

[delecti]

Patent law is convoluted sometimes, but that seems like a somewhat charitable description of pretty blatant patent infringement.

[explaininjs]

Right, and the only way laws change is by moneyed individuals testing them. We should be cheering this opportunity for an actually decent precedent to be set by Apple’s patent law army.

Though in all likelihood it will be settled out of court.

[rtsil]

The engineers didn't invent the tech in their garage on their own, though. And I don't know if your narrative reflects the reality, but if it is, "creating" the same product for a different company even when you know that the product is patent-protected is ethically questionable. My position would be different if they launched a start-up based on the tech.

[explaininjs]

> My position would be different if they launched a start-up based on the tech.

Right, that’s my whole point really. People just look at this as “bad guy Apple” when really it’s a bunch of individual engineers getting absolutely shafted while the HN community cheers.

[cool_dude85]

>But I’m all for the outcome where consumers get cool tech and the people who actually made it (notably not the Masimo CEO) get fair compensation for their work.

So Apple and their shareholders should make nothing on this either in a completely fair outcome?

[dannyw]

They should be required to license it, instead of poaching all the engineers to recreate something patented.

[explaininjs]

They tried, Masimo gave them sky-high licensing fees as a means of extortion. It’s an absolute nightmare scenario for Masimo that this (fairly simple) technology would be available to anyone besides insurance companies who pay them tens of thousands of dollars a pop.

Imo it’s appropriate for the government to step in and allow the general public to receive access to this life saving equipment without folks needing a “good insurance” plan whereby some bean counter with no medical training has looked over all your medical records and decided you are worth dropping bundles of money on to have a constant pulse taken.