Last week, the set of October 2022 cases that Apple filed against Masimo and Sound United in Delaware produced a jury verdict. The jury found two Apple design patent claims infringed, indicating that none of the tried claims from three utility patents was proven infringed. It also found one of the claims from those utility patents proven invalid for obviousness—and that Masimo’s infringement was willful. The damages sought here were so nominal that counsel for Masimo attempted to avert trial to a jury, through what the court dubbed an “exciting turn of events”, at the eleventh hour, with $900 cash.

Late last month, Apple made initial preparations to halt the sale of certain models from its Apple Watch series in light of limited exclusion and cease-and-desist orders from the International Trade Commission (ITC), which became final and enforceable on December 26. The orders arose from an ITC action filed by Masimo and Cercacor Laboratories over Apple Watches that perform pulse oximetry. Apple has appealed from the final determination of the full ITC, asking the Federal Circuit for a stay of those remedial orders pending resolution of that appeal. On December 27, 2023, the Federal Circuit granted Apple’s emergency motion for an “interim stay” while it takes up Apple’s motion for the more fulsome stay.

Masimo and Cercacor Laboratories have filed several actions against Apple, alleging trade secret misappropriation and patent infringement, in district court and before the International Trade Commission (ITC). While a mistrial ended the first round of litigation before the Central District of California, in the latter forum, the Commission has now reviewed a final initial determination (ID) of the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), finding that Apple has violated Section 337 by importation of Apple Watches with pulse oximetry measurement functionality that infringe two claims of one Masimo patent and three claims of another, none of which, per the Commission, have been proven invalid.

The trade secret portion of the Central District of California case filed by Masimo and Cercacor Laboratories against Apple ended in a mistrial early last week. Hearing evidence for around three weeks and then deliberating for several days, the jury sent out multiple notes to the judge, the fourth of which indicating that it was “not going to be able to come to a joint conclusion” and that it was “ready to stop the whole process with not being able to agree”. District Judge James V. Selna then declared a mistrial. The dispute between these parties, however, is much wider.

NPEs accounted for roughly 56% of the defendants added to patent cases in the fourth quarter of 2019 (with just over 500 defendants added), while operating companies added approximately 44% (just over 400). This breakdown extends to four the number of quarters in which NPEs added more defendants than operating company plaintiffs. To see how the numbers added up for the year as a whole, see RPX’s latest blog post. Nevertheless, the first few days of 2020 have seen a trio of significant new operating company disputes.