Last month an International Trade Commission (ITC) judge ruled that Apple infringed on a patent owned by medical device maker AliveCor with the blood oxygen feature on the Apple Watch. This feature, also known in the medical community as SP02, measures the percentage of oxygen in a person’s red blood cells. A normal person will have a blood oxygen level in the range of 95% to 100%. Lower readings could indicate the presence of one of the following:
- Anemia
- ARDS (Acute respiratory distress syndrome)
- Asthma
- Congenital heart defects in children
- Congenital heart disease in adults
- COPD
- Emphysema
- Interstitial lung disease
- Medications, such as certain narcotics and anesthetics, that depress breathing
- Pneumonia
- Pneumothorax (collapsed lung)
- Pulmonary edema (excess fluid in the lungs)
- Pulmonary embolism (blood clot in an artery in the lung)
- Pulmonary fibrosis
- Sleep apnea
Apple could be hit with a U.S. import ban on the Apple Watch or have the president veto it
Apple has reportedly hired Shara Aranoff, a lobbyist with the firm Covington & Burling. Aranoff chaired the ITC during the Obama administration. Priya Abani, CEO of AliveCor, said, “Apple has unlimited resources. They’re gonna go after everyone they can get and that’s what they’re doing. We are just a startup.” AliveCor has filed lawsuits against Apple accusing it of stealing its technology and engaging in “monopolistic conduct.” The company first shared its SP02 sensor with Apple in 2015.
The SP02 sensor on the Apple Watch monitors a user’s blood oxygen level
Eventually, AliveCor created an electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor to monitor heart rhythms which it sold to Apple. By 2018, Apple released the first Apple Watch with an ECG sensor which it created in-house. AliveCor ended up canceling its product. AliveCor’s Abani states, “We come up with new technologies, and instead of the ecosystem letting us thrive and continue to build on top of the innovations we already have, Apple cuts us out up front, steals our technology, uses their platform power to scale it, and now is basically saying it’s scaled so it can’t be cut off.”
Here we are a decade later and we have the ITC on the cusp of releasing an exclusionary order that would ban imports into the U.S. of the Apple Watch. The device is the most popular watch in the world and we wouldn’t be surprised to see President Biden use the same reasoning as President Obama did for announcing a veto of the ITC import ban.
A decision is just days away.
