Joe Kiani, Masimo founder and CEO, has taken on one of the world’s largest companies and is not backing down in an intellectual property battle over technology for measuring blood oxygen saturation.
Kiani, who co-invented Masimo’s pulse oximetry technology and built the company into a $2 billion business, has accused Apple of stealing its trade secrets and incorporating them into the Apple Watch.
Apple last week was forced to disable the blood oxygen function on popular versions of its smartwatch when a federal appeals court allowed a U.S. International Trade Commission ban on sales of Apple Watches with the feature to take effect.
“It affirms that even the largest and most powerful companies must respect the intellectual rights of American inventors and must deal with the consequences when they are caught infringing others’ patents,” Kiani said in a statement after the ruling.
Apple has said it strongly disagrees with the ITC’s decision and orders, and is continuing its appeal of the case. The tech giant has also filed two patent infringement lawsuits accusing its smaller rival of incorporating features of the Apple Watch into its own smartwatch.
Here is a collection of MedTech Dive’s recent coverage of the Apple-Masimo patent fight: