However, the jury on Oct. 25 only levied a $250 penalty — the statutory minimum in the U.S. — against Masimo, according to reports from Reuters and other media outlets. A lawyer for Apple reportedly told the jury that the money was not the point. Rather, the tech giant sought post-verdict injunctions to stop Masimo from selling the smartwatches.
However, the federal jury in Delaware also found that present versions of Masimo W1 and Freedom watches did not infringe on the patents.
In a statement shared with media outlets, Masimo claimed that the jury sided with it on nearly all the case’s issues — only finding that a discontinued module and charger violated Apple’s patents.
The trial resulted from a countersuit that Apple filed amid an ongoing intellectual property battle over health monitoring technology in smart devices.
Apple is presently appealing an International Trade Commission decision from last year that found that Apple Watches with light-based pulse oximetry functionality violated Masimo IP. The ITC banned the importation of the watches. For now, Apple’s workaround has been to sell versions of the U.S. watches that don’t contain pulse oximetry functionality.
