A Medical device and an AI company Alivecor has filed a lawsuit against Apple. The company claims that Apple has infringed three of its patents and gained an advantage on its ECG feature on the Apple Watch.
As reported by AppleInsider, Apple has reportedly infringed Alivecor’s following patents. You can take a look at the patent numbers and its designation below:
- 10,595,731- Methods and systems for arrhythmia tracking and scoring(state of the art diagnosis).
- 10,638,941- Discordance monitoring(limitations in techniques and equipment).
- 9,572,499- Methods and systems for arrhythmia tracking and scoring(inventors’ improvement in techniques and equipment).
Alivecor has filed the complaint in a District Court in Western District of Texas, U.S.A. Accordingly, Apple’s ECG feature on Apple Watch 4, (specifically) Apple Watch 5, and above infringes the above patents. It basically deals with how to use wearable sensors to improve cardiac monitoring using specific methods.
What is interesting here is the Alivecor’s claims of Apple being aware of the above infringement. As per the statement, the company says that the Cupertino giant is doing this purposefully. If you recall, Apple introduced the ECG feature with Apple Watch Series 4.
The ECG app uses a heart rate sensor to detect the electrodes built into the Digital Crown and a new electrical heart rate sensor in the back crystal. Thus, it can tell if a heartbeat is normal or is experiencing any Atrial Fibrillation (AFib). The Apple Watch Series 5, had the same feature but with an improved Always-on Display made possible by LTPO technology.
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Lawsuit
Coming back, the lawsuit says that Apple’s watches which detects irregular heartbeat(Cardiac Arrhythmia) is using the data the same way to diagnose the condition. For the unware, Alivecor is a well-known company that sells ECG hardware& software for mobile & wearables. And it is the first to get US FDA approval to be used as a medical-device accessory to Apple Watch.
The company, however, stopped selling the ECG-enabled Kardiaband after Apple introduced the feature for itself on Watch 4. Now, in the lawsuit, it says it needs compensation. Precisely, as per the prayer of the relief section on the lawsuit, it asks for enjoinment(prohibit from infringement).
Additionally, it is also asking for damages, attorney fees, and other equitable reliefs. Let’s wait and see how this pans out in the future.
