Apple Watches with blood oxygen tech are banned again
Apple Watches with blood oxygen tech are banned again
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Apple Watches with blood oxygen tech are banned again
Apple Watches with blood oxygen tech are banned again::A ban on selling the Apple Watch Series 9 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 will be reinstated after the US Court of Appeals lifted its stay.
I feel like this kinda tech should be more widely available if it's for health reasons, to avoid a monopoly on something vital.
Patents literally are a government granted time-limited monopoly. There are a number of reasons why the government grants these monopolies. Perhaps, the ethics of medical patents should be debated, but if we collectively don't grant patents on vital medical technologies, then I think it is unlikely that corporations are going to invest billions developing and testing life saving drugs. (Another debate: are private corporations the best stewards of developing this technology.)
For now, this is the system we've engineered ourselves into a corner with.
I don't really care about some blood oxygen monitor in a smart watch, but inadvertently destroying the pharmaceutical industry over it probably ought to be carefully considered.
Inadvertently destroying the pharmaceutical industry would be one of the best possible outcomes.
Doesn’t the government usually fund drug research and development?
Sorry but that’s such a ridiculous assertion. Companies wont innovate if they can’t hold a monopoly on what they make? Thank God one company has a patent and monopoly on touchscreens or companies would never have made smartphones, and the patent on routers saved us from never having the internet… patents are bullshit and should be banned. Monopolies don’t help innovation they stifle it and billion dollar conglomerates dont need more power to continue seeking profit.
"It's not enough that a company has a working product and a captive audience (sick people in need) but we need to ensure they're the only ones that are able to bend these sick people over to profit off it."
Yeah you're right, it is as dumb as it sounds.
Theirs isn't the only way and apple could have purchased the license to use it but opted to rip off mosimo instead. Notice that samsung and many other watch manufacturers with pulse ox aren't affected by this. Only Apple.
I've checked my samsung watch against actual medical pulse ox monitors I have access to and they're within 1% of each other in heart rate (within a couple bpm, at least) and oxygen saturation do they seem as accurate.
Also, Apple does not claim to be a medical device. Neither does samsung. They aren't opening themselves up to all the liability and extra hoops for that, so no one should be medically relying on them, even if they do appear to be working as such.
I think you just answered the question why monopolists are working so hard at preventing that.
There are other options on the market from what I understand, Apple just really liked how one company did it. Not enough to just license it like a normal company though, they opted to gut the company that made it.
The blood oxygen sensor on the watch is a novelty and is not a medical device. It's not accurate enough to provide any actual medical help.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35329793/