Masimo Proves New Apple Watch Series 9 Units Still Have the Blood Oxygen Sensor
Florian Mueller, writing at IP Fray:
The January 12, 2024 CBP order has recently been published (CBP
webpage). The parties’ filings with the appeals court were
heavily redacted where they discussed the enforcement dispute over
Apple’s workaround. Now it’s a bit clearer what technical changes
Apple made and why they managed to get their workaround Watches
cleared. There is some hardware “designation” in the newer Watches
that tells the software in those Watches not to perform pulse
oximetry although all of the necessary components are present.
Masimo managed to reenable pulse oximetry, but only after
jailbreaking older iPhones and using them to manipulate the Watch,
which constitutes a “significant alteration” of the product.
The fact that Masimo could reenable the feature by running some
custom software on jailbroken older iPhones absolutely positively
means that Apple itself can reactivate that feature for its
customers in the event it prevails on appeal or, in the
alternative, in late August 2028 at the latest (because the
patents-in-suit expire then).
It’s been pretty clear since January that the sensors in dispute are still present in newly-sold Apple Watches, and they’re simply disabled in software, but this seemingly confirms it.
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Florian Mueller, writing at IP Fray:
The January 12, 2024 CBP order has recently been published (CBP
webpage). The parties’ filings with the appeals court were
heavily redacted where they discussed the enforcement dispute over
Apple’s workaround. Now it’s a bit clearer what technical changes
Apple made and why they managed to get their workaround Watches
cleared. There is some hardware “designation” in the newer Watches
that tells the software in those Watches not to perform pulse
oximetry although all of the necessary components are present.
Masimo managed to reenable pulse oximetry, but only after
jailbreaking older iPhones and using them to manipulate the Watch,
which constitutes a “significant alteration” of the product.
The fact that Masimo could reenable the feature by running some
custom software on jailbroken older iPhones absolutely positively
means that Apple itself can reactivate that feature for its
customers in the event it prevails on appeal or, in the
alternative, in late August 2028 at the latest (because the
patents-in-suit expire then).
It’s been pretty clear since January that the sensors in dispute are still present in newly-sold Apple Watches, and they’re simply disabled in software, but this seemingly confirms it.