After Apple announced that it was ending the sale of its latest two smartwatches, Masimo Chairman Joe Kiani said he was open to reaching a settlement with Apple.
He leads a medical device manufacturing company that has made Apple's two smartwatches face a ban in the United States.
When Kiani was asked on the 19th whether he was willing to settle with Apple, he said that "the short answer is yes", but did not want to disclose how much settlement money he hoped to seek from Apple. Kiani said he was "willing to work with them to improve their products".
Kiyani said: "They didn't hit **. A slap doesn't make a sound. ”
The U.S. International Commission (ITC) earlier ruled that the Apple Watch infringed two of Masimo's patents related to blood oxygen testing, and the import ban on the Ultra2 and Series 9 watches will take effect on December 25
The ban only applies to Apple's direct retail channels, so Best Buy, Target and other retailers can continue to sell these products. However, the latest situation necessitates Apple to remove one of its best-selling products from the shelves during the all-important Christmas shopping season, and Apple earned about $17 billion in revenue from the Apple Watch last year.
Kiani said the last time he spoke to Apple was in 2013, when the iPhone maker discussed buying his company or hiring him to help with internal technical efforts. Any settlement negotiations need to include "honest dialogue" and apologies.
An Apple spokesperson said the ITC's ruling was wrong and should be reversed. The company plans to appeal this.
However, Apple is already preparing for the ban, announcing that related products plan to stop selling on Apple's official website from Thursday, and physical stores will stop selling on Christmas Eve on the 24th.
Kiyani described Apple's move as a "gimmick" to pressure Biden to exercise his veto power over the ban. The United States** has the ability to intervene and revoke the ITC's ban.
"It's not an inadvertent infringement, it's a deliberate theft of our intellectual property rights," Kiani said, adding that the world can now see that we are the real inventors and creators of these technologies
He accused Apple of hiring more than 20 engineers on his team and doubling the pay of some of them to develop similar medical technology for the Apple Watch.
Apple could have set an example and done the right thing and done good, they wouldn't have had to poach us", we could have worked with them.
Apple says its team "works tirelessly to create products and services that serve users with industry-leading health, wellness, and safety features." Apple strongly disagrees with the order and is pursuing a series of legal and technical options to ensure that the Apple Watch is available to consumers. ”
Apple also said that the company believes that Masimo's legal battle is to pave the way for its smartwatch to go public.
Apple is making changes to the software for the Apple Watch and believes it will be able to resolve the dispute.
Kiani thinks this approach is useless, "I don't think it will work, and it shouldn't work, because our patents are not related to software, but to hardware with software".
Asked if Apple could avoid the import ban, Kiani said that such an import ban would not work if Apple made the watches and their components in the United States. In contrast, Masimo built its technology in the United States.