Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC in a statement shared on live television that Apple has no intention to license Masimo’s patents. While it seemed likely that was the case, the company hadn’t said as much publicly until now.
“We’re focused on appeal,” Cook’s statement said. “There’s lots of reasons to buy the watch even without the blood oxygen sensor.”
No surprise here. Apple’s position, which I expect they’ll likely eventually prevail on, is that none of Masimo’s relevant patents are valid and they should have never been issued. Why pay money to license an invalid patent?
Furthermore, licensing a patent can give credibility to said patent, making it more difficult to prove in court that it was ever invalid in the first place.
Yup, Apple doesn’t mess around. Masimo isn’t gonna see a cent from them. The sort of fail that usually means management changes.
It’s not invalid yet though. As of right now they’re in violation, and they went so far as to hire away Masimo engineers to make them work on a competing product. If you want the tech that badly why NOT license it?
Because they don’t think the patent is actually valid. Getting it officially invalidated is a process but if it really should have never been issued in the first place, then Apple is not truly infringing it and has no obligation to pay a cent to anybody else for it.