The lawsuit between Apple and blood oxygen sensing technology company Masimo is still ongoing, although last week Masimo successfully blocked the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 through a ban issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) on Christmas Day They were removed from the shelves a week ago, but a week after the suspension, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit suspended the ban on the two models, so the two models returned to Apple shelves and continue to be sold.
Masimo initially sued Apple in 2020, alleging that Apple Watch infringed on a total of ten Masimo patents. Masimo also believed that Apple maliciously poached its own employees, because shortly after the two parties discussed cooperation, Apple poached its engineers and chief medical officer from Masimo.
“Bloomberg” recently reported that Marcelo Lamego, who was one of Masimo’s key engineers at the time, wrote an email to Apple CEO Cook to apply for a job, and was eventually hired by Apple.
Lamego holds a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He joined Masimo in 2003 as a research scientist. In 2006, Lamego became the chief technology officer of Cercacor, a subsidiary of Masimo, and worked at Cercacor until January 2014, when he left Cercacor and joined Apple.
How Lamego was hired by Apple and the role he played are quite intriguing, and he has also become part of the litigation dispute between Masimo and Apple.
The report pointed out that in early 2013, Apple approached Lamego about potential employment matters. At that time, senior executives of the two companies had been in contact with each other about cooperation, so Lamego initially rejected Apple’s proposal; but Masimo CEO refused to provide Lamego with a better offer from the company. After the position, Lamego changed his mind and wrote to Cook to seek a job at Apple.
Lamego wrote in a letter to Cook, “In the past ten years, I have developed many medical devices. If I have the opportunity to become a member of the Apple team, I am sure that I can bring great value to the Apple team.” He also told Cook “I firmly believe that we can develop a new wave of technologies that will make Apple the number one brand in the medical, fitness and health markets.”
Lamego officially joined Apple’s R&D team in January 2014, but he only worked at Apple for 7 months before leaving. Why? Retiring Apple vice president Steve Hotelling alleged that Lamego was “not a good fit for the company” because he often clashed with management, demanded multimillion-dollar budgets and wanted to be able to hire his own engineers without approval. .
But Lamego only stayed for just 7 months, so why did he become part of the dispute between Apple and Masimo? Masimo’s lawyer said that Lamego did not really understand the blood oxygen function that would interest Apple, but he shared with Apple information obtained from his past work with Cercacor and Masimo.
Lamego later founded his own company, True Wearables, and launched a blood oxygen monitoring device called Oxxiom. Of course, Masimo did not let Lamego go. The former subsequently sued True Wearables and successfully prevented True Wearables from selling Oxxiom.
The original Apple Watch was unveiled in September 2014. At that time, it only provided the most basic heart rate monitoring function; the blood oxygen detection function was not really launched until Apple Watch Series 6. Before the launch of Apple Watch Series 6, there had been rumors in the market that Apple would launch an Apple Watch equipped with a blood oxygen detection function. Masimo has continued to criticize Apple for stealing its technology by hiring Masimo’s key engineers.
(Source of the first picture: Science and Technology News)
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2023-12-29 07:11:52
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