On a single Friday that may be remembered as a significant turning point in one of the technology industry’s most protracted legal battles, Apple — and specifically its Apple Watch division — suffered two major legal setbacks. First, a jury rendered an unfavorable verdict against the tech giant, compelling it to pay an astonishing $634 million in damages to the healthcare technology company Masimo. This came as a direct result of a complex patent dispute involving medical sensor technology allegedly incorporated into Apple’s wearable devices. Almost simultaneously, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) declared that it would reopen its inquiry into whether an import ban on Apple Watches might be justified once again, a decision rooted in ongoing concerns tied to Masimo’s intellectual property claims.
For Masimo, this dual outcome represents not only a substantial financial and legal triumph but also an important symbolic victory in its seemingly endless quest to hold Apple accountable for what it perceives as a long pattern of infringement and unfair competition. The conflict between the two companies has evolved into a sprawling, multi-front legal war that has dragged on for years, absorbing the attention of courts, regulators, and analysts alike.
Responding to the jury’s decision, Apple provided a statement to Yahoo Finance that sought to frame Masimo’s litigation campaign as excessive and largely unfounded. A company representative pointed out that over the past six years, Masimo has pursued lawsuits in numerous jurisdictions, asserting more than twenty-five different patents — the majority of which, according to Apple, were ultimately deemed invalid. The particular verdict in question, Apple contends, revolves around a patent related to technology for patient monitoring systems that has already expired, having originated from practices and inventions dating back decades.
Earlier in 2024, in a maneuver designed to comply with existing trade rulings and to avoid the disruptions caused by an earlier import ban, Apple removed the blood-oxygen monitoring feature from newer models of the Apple Watch. These redesigned devices, however, have not escaped regulatory scrutiny. The ITC’s renewed interest suggests that even Apple’s workaround versions might be subject to further examination to determine whether they continue to infringe on Masimo’s patents. Notably, the watches that are now under investigation differ from those specifically cited in the recent jury judgment, illustrating the layered and evolving nature of the dispute.
Masimo’s technology, while primarily developed for use in hospitals and clinical settings, has long relied on sophisticated pulse oximetry — the measurement of blood oxygen saturation through light-based sensors. The company alleges that Apple appropriated the fundamentals of this technology and adapted them for consumer use in its smartwatches, integrating them into features designed to track workouts, heart rate, and wellness metrics. Apple, for its part, maintains that the contested patent expired in 2022 and that its wearables, as consumer-grade devices, should not be conflated with professional medical instruments. Nonetheless, this line of defense evidently failed to persuade the jury, which sided with Masimo’s interpretation of the facts.
In a separate but related development, a November 14th order from the ITC confirmed that the commission will conduct a new investigation into whether Apple’s purported workaround — crafted to circumvent an older import ban — itself crosses the line into patent infringement. The wording of the order was explicit: this new proceeding is not an opportunity to reargue or reintroduce defenses that were already raised, or should have been raised, in the original investigation. The procedural rigidity of this order underscores the ITC’s determination to keep the inquiry narrowly focused and firmly based on the matter at hand.
The protracted Apple–Masimo confrontation has taken many unexpected turns over the years, to the point that industry observers sometimes describe it as a drawn-out corporate drama. One particularly ironic episode occurred in 2023, when Apple secured a victory in a countersuit against Masimo after the latter unveiled its own smartwatch. That case ended with Apple being awarded a token $250 in damages — a sum more symbolic than material — but Apple representatives explained that the objective had never been financial compensation. Rather, the company sought an injunction to prevent what it claimed was a violation of its own design-related patents.
The origins of this complex legal saga trace back more than a decade. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, as early as 2013 Apple approached Masimo to explore potential collaboration on wearable technology capable of tracking vital signs such as heart rate and oxygen levels. Instead of yielding a cooperative partnership, those early interactions allegedly resulted in Apple recruiting two senior Masimo executives, enticing them with compensation packages roughly double what they had previously earned. Joe Kiani, Masimo’s founder and chief executive, later stated that Apple did not stop there, asserting that the company managed to hire around twenty of Masimo’s employees during that period, even though many others declined such offers.
A 2023 article in The Wall Street Journal further illuminated how Apple’s corporate strategy allegedly operates when engaging smaller technology firms. According to that reporting, Apple often initiates talks under the banner of potential collaboration, only for these smaller companies to later claim that their proprietary ideas were appropriated. Masimo’s CEO summarized the sentiment with a biting remark: when Apple shows interest in a company, it can often become, in his words, ‘the kiss of death.’
Masimo ultimately filed a trade-secret lawsuit against Apple in 2020, accusing it of misappropriating confidential information. That particular case, however, ended in a hung jury — a result that provided no definitive closure and left both parties poised for further litigation. As the legal landscape continues to shift, it is evident that the conflict between Apple and Masimo remains far from resolved, with the two titans locked in a battle that blends questions of technology, ethics, and the increasingly blurred boundary between consumer electronics and medical innovation.
Sourse: https://gizmodo.com/apple-suffers-2-defeats-in-one-day-amid-patent-war-with-masimo-2000686437
