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Apple loses bid to overturn $634 million Masimo patent verdict, new trial also denied 29%
By Marcus Mendes31%
7/21/2026, 10:19:01 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 14 faulty reasoning types, including Recency Bias, Ambiguity (Equivocation), and Unattributed Quote, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 24.5% saturation with 140 hits. Analysis detected 595 faulty-reasoning hits from 571 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 39.6% and a BS Rank of 29% (13,974 of 19,443 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 71.90% of the article peer group.
Apple’s requests to overturn a $634 million patent verdict and secure a new trial in its long-running legal battle with Masimo were denied.
Here are the details.
A bit of background
In early 2020, medical technology company Masimo sued Apple, accusing it of stealing trade secrets and infringing patents related to pulse oximetry and other optical health-monitoring technologies used by the Apple Watch.
Since then, the companies have been locked in a sprawling legal battle.
In 2023, Masimo secured an International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling that led to a US import ban affecting Apple Watch models equipped with blood oxygen monitoring.
This prompted Apple to temporarily halt sales, later resuming sales of affected models with the blood oxygen feature disabled.
In 2025, the company introduced a redesigned feature that measures and calculates sensor data from the Apple Watch on the paired iPhone, with results displayed in the Health app.
Masimo subsequently sued US Customs and Border Protection over its decision to allow imports of watches featuring the redesign.
Meanwhile, the patent portion of Masimo’s original California lawsuit proceeded separately from the ITC case.
In November 2025, a jury found that the Apple Watch’s heart-rate monitoring and notification features infringed a different Masimo pulse oximetry patent and ordered Apple to pay $634 million in damages.
Since then, Apple has been attempting to overturn this finding, which brings us to today.
Judge upholds the jury’s findings
As reported by Law360 (via AppleInsider):
Apple has lost its bid to dodge a jury’s finding that it owes $634 million for infringing a Masimo Corp. patent after a California federal judge rejected the tech giant’s challenge to how the court construed a key term and its bid for a new trial.
U.S.
District Judge James V.
Selna turned down Apple’s request for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial in the multipronged litigation, rejecting one of Apple's arguments that its product was not a “patient monitor” as required by Masimo's patent.
In his ruling, Judge Selna sided with the jury’s conclusion that the Apple Watch can be considered a patient-monitoring device under the patent.
Apple had basically argued that the term should apply only to conventional medical equipment, but the judge found that the patent’s broader, everyday meaning could also cover the Apple Watch.
He also rejected Apple’s request for a new trial.
Apple had challenged the jury instructions and the decision to exclude testimony from one of its experts, but Judge Selna found no errors serious enough to warrant a retrial.
When reached for comment, Apple referred Law360 to an earlier statement, which said:
“Masimo is a medical device company that does not sell any products to consumers.
Over the past six years they have sued Apple in multiple courts and asserted over 25 patents, the majority of which have been found to be invalid, […] The single patent in this case expired in 2022, and is specific to historic patient monitoring technology from decades ago.
We plan to appeal.”
To read Law360’s full report, follow this link.
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Analysis
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