Masimo CEO says users are better off without blood oxygen tool on Apple Watch

Masimo CEO Joe Kiani, waging a legal fight with Apple Inc. over a blood oxygen feature on Apple Watch, said that consumers are better off without the iPhone maker’s version of the technology. The remarks followed Apple’s decision to cease sales of smartwatches Thursday that had the tool — a gauge of blood oxygen saturation known as a pulse oximeter — which had been a heavily marketed health feature on the devices. The move stemmed from a ruling by the US International Trade Commission that found the technology violated Masimo patents.

Customers should buy pulse oximeters from Masimo or others instead, Kiani said in an interview Thursday on Bloomberg TV. “Apple is masquerading what they are offering to consumers as a reliable, medical pulse oximeter, even though it is not,” he said. “I really feel wholeheartedly that consumers are better off without it.”

Apple said that Kiani’s claims are false and that its watch’s blood oxygen feature is accurate, works very well for customers and in some cases can save lives. After a US federal appeals court denied Apple a reprieve, the company began selling tweaked versions of its Series 9 and Ultra 2 watches Thursday without the feature. Apple said it strongly disagrees with the court’s decision and is appealing the ITC ban.

Unlike Apple’s implementation of blood oxygen sensing, Masimo’s offering has been approved by the US Federal Drug Administration, Kiani said. He criticized the Apple feature for just taking two measurements a day and claimed the company only released the tool during the Covid pandemic to take market share from Fitbit, now part of Alphabet Inc.’s Google.

“Pulse oximetry is not useful unless it is a continuous monitor,” Kiani said. “That happens during sleep. During sleep, you could have a desaturation that might be related to apnea. You can have a dangerous desaturation to opioid pain relief you might have taken. That is where the value comes.”

In response, Apple said that its watch wasn’t designed to detect desaturation events and that it’s not a continuous blood oxygen monitor. Instead, the device does on-demand spot checks and intermittent background checks for blood oxygen levels. It added that the continuous measurements Kiani describes don’t make a device accurate. Accuracy is determined by comparisons to high-quality reference data, the company said.

Masimo’s CEO said he hasn’t spoken to Apple personally about a settlement, and that nobody from Apple has reached out about coming to an agreement. 

“There are court-ordered mediations that I cannot get into that have been held before,” he said. “And there will be additional meetings probably in the future.” 

Kiani added that he doesn’t consider those meetings to be steps toward settling litigation. Apple disputed Kiani’s characterization that nobody from Apple has reached out, saying that the company has held a mediation and that a future meeting has been set. 

The executive also criticized the idea that his company is throwing everything it can at Apple to see what sticks, saying that none of his company’s patents have been invalidated. 

Apple is living in a “fake reality,” Kiani said. “This narrative is false.”

For its part, Apple said 15 of 17 Masimo patents have been found invalid in earlier litigation. The ITC case centers on two patents.

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