{"id":5758,"date":"2026-07-06T10:49:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T08:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calysta.eu\/would-you-call-an-apple-watch-a-patient-monitor\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T12:32:37","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T10:32:37","slug":"would-you-call-an-apple-watch-a-patient-monitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calysta.eu\/nl\/would-you-call-an-apple-watch-a-patient-monitor\/","title":{"rendered":"Would you call an Apple Watch a patient monitor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On June 10, 2026, Danaher completed its $9.9 billion acquisition of Masimo Corporation, the company that just forced a US jury to answer that very question.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What has Danaher just bought, really?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Masimo develops non-invasive patient monitoring technology, mainly pulse oximetry sensors for acute care settings, and holds 475 patent families with more than 1,000 alive patents and patent applications. What Danaher bought was not just a pulse-oximeter maker, but an innovative medical technology company with a broad patent portfolio, which it has spent years actively defending in court.<\/p>\n

That defense had just paid off. Danaher\u2019s deal closed a few months after a California jury awarded Masimo $634 million for Apple’s infringement of Masimo’s low power pulse oximeter patent US 10,433,776<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A big part of that dispute came down to two words in the Masimo patent\u2019s claim: “patient monitor<\/em>\u201d. Apple argued the term covers only devices built to never miss a critical medical event, the kind of equipment found in a hospital, not a consumer wearable sold at a shopping mall. Masimo pointed to Apple’s own marketing of the Watch as a heart rate monitor, and argued the term covers any device performing that function. The jury agreed with Masimo: certain Apple Watch models, it found, qualified as patient monitors.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But the Masimo-Apple fight has a second front<\/strong><\/p>\n

The patent verdict is not the whole story. A trade-secret dispute has been running in parallel, this time over whether Apple improperly used Masimo’s confidential know-how after allegedly hiring away its people and the technical information they carried with them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What we can learn from this<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first lesson is that a claim is rarely written around one specific device: it can cover a range of the patentee’s products, including next-generation ones, and competitors\u2019 products as well. But how broadly it will be read can be subject to differing interpretations, and can vary by jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

The second lesson is that patents and trade secrets can be complementary strategies. Masimo used both to protect different aspects of its technology: the patent for the technical solution Masimo chose to disclose, and the trade secret for the know-how it never published.<\/p>\n

Apple has announced it will appeal the patent verdict. What Danaher, Masimo’s new owner, decides to do is the next episode of this story.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On June 10, 2026, Danaher completed its $9.9 billion acquisition of Masimo Corporation, the company that just forced a US jury to answer that very question.   What has Danaher just bought, really? Masimo develops non-invasive patient monitoring technology, mainly pulse oximetry sensors for acute care settings, and holds 475 patent families with more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":5753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[130],"tags":[335,144,146],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calysta.eu\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5758\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calysta.eu\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calysta.eu\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calysta.eu\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calysta.eu\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=5758"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/calysta.eu\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5758\/revisions\/"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5767,"href":"https:\/\/calysta.eu\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5758\/revisions\/5767\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calysta.eu\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5753\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calysta.eu\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=5758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calysta.eu\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=5758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calysta.eu\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=5758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}