Another setback in Apple’s patent battle with Masimo.

Apple Watches with blood oxygen tech are banned again::A ban on selling the Apple Watch Series 9 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 will be reinstated after the US Court of Appeals lifted its stay.

  • Laticauda@lemmy.caEnglish
    464·
    11 months ago

    I feel like this kinda tech should be more widely available if it’s for health reasons, to avoid a monopoly on something vital.

    • collapse_already@lemmy.mlEnglish
      314·
      11 months ago

      Patents literally are a government granted time-limited monopoly. There are a number of reasons why the government grants these monopolies. Perhaps, the ethics of medical patents should be debated, but if we collectively don’t grant patents on vital medical technologies, then I think it is unlikely that corporations are going to invest billions developing and testing life saving drugs. (Another debate: are private corporations the best stewards of developing this technology.)

      For now, this is the system we’ve engineered ourselves into a corner with.

      I don’t really care about some blood oxygen monitor in a smart watch, but inadvertently destroying the pharmaceutical industry over it probably ought to be carefully considered.

      • Curious Canid@lemmy.caEnglish
        142·
        11 months ago

        Inadvertently destroying the pharmaceutical industry would be one of the best possible outcomes.

          • Curious Canid@lemmy.caEnglish
            6·
            11 months ago

            I didn’t say anything about stopping the manufacture of medications. There are any number of ways that could be handled which would be an improvement over our current pharmaceutical industry.

          • bean@lemmy.worldEnglish
            41·
            11 months ago

            I mean, if you got super sick in America right now… I bet you’d be thinking “oh fuck, this is going to cost me.” So, even though we have all this fancy medicine, how many people in the end actually get that medicine? Who Can afford it? Look at Ozempic and Wegovy, it’s for diabetics and pre-diabetics I believe, but there is a shortage on it because affluent people will shell out hundreds to lose weight.

        • collapse_already@lemmy.mlEnglish
          33·
          11 months ago

          In the U.S., private companies spend about 5x on drug development than the government. The numbers are probably fuzzier than that though because I don’t think the government spending numbers capture things like grants to graduate students working on drug research.

      • Nix@merv.newsEnglish
        156·
        11 months ago

        Sorry but that’s such a ridiculous assertion. Companies wont innovate if they can’t hold a monopoly on what they make? Thank God one company has a patent and monopoly on touchscreens or companies would never have made smartphones, and the patent on routers saved us from never having the internet… patents are bullshit and should be banned. Monopolies don’t help innovation they stifle it and billion dollar conglomerates dont need more power to continue seeking profit.

        • GiveMemesEnglish
          7·
          11 months ago

          Not to mention the fact that they get the money for developing these drugs from the government lmaooo

      • cooopsspace@infosec.pubEnglish
        32·
        11 months ago

        “It’s not enough that a company has a working product and a captive audience (sick people in need) but we need to ensure they’re the only ones that are able to bend these sick people over to profit off it.”

        Yeah you’re right, it is as dumb as it sounds.

        • collapse_already@lemmy.mlEnglish
          7·
          11 months ago

          You spent 2 billion dollars developing a cure for x? I reverse engineered your cure for $30k (or just looked up your formula in your regulatory filings for free), so I can sell the same product for much cheaper than you since I don’t have any development costs to recoup. If you can’t protect your investment, you won’t make the investment.

          The problem here is not the patent system. The problem is relying on private for-profit industry to develop drugs. Not enough people get your ailment for a cure to be profitable? Sorry, you are SOL. Also, the current system incentivises developing maintenance drugs over cures. That’s one of the big reasons Type 2 diabetes has met metformin, janumet, glipizide, farxiga, ozempic, etc. All of those drugs are symptom management rather than treatments. A treatment would be a financial disaster for big pharma.

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      8·
      11 months ago

      Theirs isn’t the only way and apple could have purchased the license to use it but opted to rip off mosimo instead. Notice that samsung and many other watch manufacturers with pulse ox aren’t affected by this. Only Apple.

      I’ve checked my samsung watch against actual medical pulse ox monitors I have access to and they’re within 1% of each other in heart rate (within a couple bpm, at least) and oxygen saturation do they seem as accurate.

      Also, Apple does not claim to be a medical device. Neither does samsung. They aren’t opening themselves up to all the liability and extra hoops for that, so no one should be medically relying on them, even if they do appear to be working as such.

    • ben@lemmy.zipEnglish
      6·
      11 months ago

      There are other options on the market from what I understand, Apple just really liked how one company did it. Not enough to just license it like a normal company though, they opted to gut the company that made it.

    • beebarfbadger@lemmy.worldEnglish
      71·
      11 months ago

      I think you just answered the question why monopolists are working so hard at preventing that.

    • Trollception@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      11 months ago

      The blood oxygen sensor on the watch is a novelty and is not a medical device. It’s not accurate enough to provide any actual medical help.