Apple
has been banned from selling the
Apple Watch Series 9
and
Apple Watch Ultra 2
in the United States due to a legal battle with Masimo. The United States International Trade Commission ruled that Apple had infringed two of
Masimo
's
blood oxygen patents
. As a result, Apple had to pause the sale of these watches from its online and physical stores by December 21 and December 24, respectively.
Before the
Apple Watch
was even announced,
Marcelo Lamego
, the chief technical officer of Cercacor Laboratories Inc., a sister company of Masimo Corp – the company that has sued Apple, sent a late-night email to
Tim Cook
, “I strongly believe that we can develop the new wave of technology that will make Apple the No. 1 brand in the medical, fitness and wellness market.”
This is the email that could have led to the ban on Apple Watches.
“The three equations
Marcelo Lamego <[email protected]>
Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 12:54 AM
To: [email protected]
Dear Tim Cook,
I was approached by Apple in the beginning of this year (by David Affourtit and James Foster) and was asked if I would like to join the executive technical team. Because I did not want to sign the Apple's NDA for an onsite interview, the process came to a halt. I felt that it was not appropriate to receive confidential information from or disclose confidential information to Apple given my fiduciary responsibilities as the Chief Technical Officer of Cercacor.
I have developed several medical devices in the last 10 years and I am positively sure I could add a significant value to the Apple team, if I was given the chance of becoming part of it in a senior technical executive position and without conflicting with the large IP | have developed for Masimo and Cercacor during the same period.
What I am sure Apple soon will realize is that medical, wellness and fitness technologies are very deceptive in the sense that they are easy to develop for products that work in most (~80%) he users. Getting the same technology to work in almost the entire population is a problem extremely more complex. This is the very reason most medical device startups become insolvent. Knowing Apple's reputation, I am sure you would not settle for even 99%, imagine then, 80%.
As you probably know, regulatory barriers are another important consideration when dealing with medical technologies in general. If the FDA or any other regulatory agency worldwide (i.e., Canada, Japan, Korea, Europe, etc.) believe your product should be regulated by their standards then, the choice of intended use combined with the technology realization strategy can make the development shorten or longer by several years.
The reason I feel attracted by Apple as a company is not related to the things most people are interested in, i.e., brand recognition, great culture, great products, great people. It has to do with the fact that, as an engineer, I realised that there are three important equations to be solved in order to create a competitive global medical, wellness and fitness product portfolio…..”
A few weeks later, Lamego was hired by Apple, where he filed about a dozen patents on sensors and blood-oxygen algorithms for a wearable device. However, he left the company in July 2014. According to Bloomberg, Lamego's email and patents led Masimo to sue Apple, even though these patents were published before Apple introduced the blood oxygen sensor with the Apple Watch Series 6.
English (US) ·