Apple, and especially the Apple Watch, faced a legal one-two punch on Friday. A jury found against the gadget titan, ordering it to pay $634 million to health tech company Masimo, while the same day the US International Trade Commission announced it would re-examine whether it wanted to impose import restrictions on the Apple Watch – also due to concerns over Masimo.
This is a huge double victory for Massimo, whose multi-year legal war on Apple has been extensive and seemingly endless.
Apple provided a statement to this effect to Yahoo Finance. “Over the past six years” Massimo has filed lawsuits in numerous courts, a representative said, and “has filed claims on more than 25 patents, most of which have been found invalid.” The ruling in this case relates to a patent that Apple claims “expires in 2022, and is specific to landmark patient monitoring technology from decades ago.”
In 2024, Apple got rid of the blood oxygen monitor feature to avoid import restrictions. The redesigned Apple Watches, now under ITC’s renewed investigation, are not the ones the jury just found infringed on Massimo’s patent.
For what it’s worth, Masimo’s technology is primarily designed for hospital and clinical use, but it has been claimed that Apple copied its patented pulse-oximetry technology for use in the watch’s workout and heart rate monitoring functions. Apple’s arguments, that the patent expires in 2022, and that Apple Watches are consumer gadgets rather than hospital equipment, clearly failed to convince the jury.
Meanwhile, the ITC’s November 14 order said the commission will now investigate whether the Apple workaround to circumvent the previous import ban also infringes Masimo’s patent. “This proceeding does not provide an opportunity to waive off other defenses that should have been litigated in the investigation of the underlying violation,” the order said.
The Apple-Massimo soap opera has had many ups and downs. The most entertaining was probably when Apple won a countersuit against Masimo last year after Masimo made its own smart watch product – and Apple was awarded $250 in damages. Apple claimed that Massimo was infringing its design patents, and representatives said the ultimate goal of the lawsuit was an injunction, not damages.
The whole complicated affair is believed to go back to 2013, when Apple first talked with Massimo about making watches that could monitor people’s pulse, and then hired two former Massimo executives and paid them double their salaries, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times. It didn’t end there, according to Masimo engineer Joe Kiani, who said that Apple received much more money for Masimo’s employees than just the two executives. Kiani claimed, “Many of my people did not go, but they still got 20 of my people.”
A 2023 Wall Street Journal article described how Apple allegedly sought partnerships with smaller companies, including Masimo, and then engaged in alleged activities similar to stealing ideas. “When Apple takes an interest in a company, it’s the kiss of death,” Massimo’s Kiani told the Journal.
Massimo filed a lawsuit in 2020 over alleged theft of trade secrets. That trial ended with a hung jury.