US Judge invalidates blood glucose sensor patent, opens door for Apple Watch
182 comments
·February 21, 2025shakna
pjc50
The patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10517484B2/en
Note how similar this is to the pulse oximeter, which was invented in Japan in 1972 and patented in the US in 2004.
oldgradstudent
> Note how similar this is to the pulse oximeter, which was invented in Japan in 1972 and patented in the US in 2004.
How could an invention from 1972, which I assume was publically disclosed around that time, be patented in 2004?
Were the details kept secret for 32 years?
pjc50
See discussion on first-to-file: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43125638
The "clock" does not start when the invention happens, which is anyway a very hard thing to pin down. But as you say, it creates very counter intuitive results.
jolmg
It's the same person in both patents, Takuo Aoyagi. You can register a patent in separate jurisdictions, because they're separate jurisdictions.
nicoburns
Because the patent system is broken
theli0nheart
It must have been different in some key way, or the 1972 invention lacked several key improvements that the 2004 patent claimed.
NotYourLawyer
I haven’t looked at the patent documents, but I’d bet money it’s not the same. The later US patent is probably for an improvement on the original device.
tzs
I find it hard to believe that this patent was keeping Apple from adding blood glucose sensing. Yes, I know a patent on blood oxygen level sensing stopped Apple, but there is a huge difference between oxygen level sensing and glucose sensing.
For oxygen sensing there are numerous readily available inexpensive stand-alone sensors available at any drug store or online. They are non-invasive and painless. Yes, a continuously wearable sensor would be better for some people but most people don't need that. Accordingly it is something that while nice wouldn't really sell a lot of watches, and so something that might not be worth licensing if it is under patent.
Glucose sensing on the other hand is a literal pain to test and has ongoing costs due to consumables used for the testing. Non-invasive painless glucose sensing on a watch is a feature that would sell a lot of watches. I think demand would be high enough, even if they have to raise prices, that it would easily be worth it.
ijustlovemath
we're building an artificial pancreas for hospitals, so I know a good bit about CGMs. Noninvasive blood sugar sensing is horrifically difficult. Every few years, people come along and say "oh this is just some simple DSP on spectroscopic information, piece of cake" before inevitably running up against:
- skin conductivity changes over time
- the ways in which skin tone changes signal absorption (which itself changes over time)
- the ways in which different levels of fitness affect blood flow, material density etc.
You also can't use it in a hospital setting, due to how your skin and bloodflow changes during serious conditions like sepsis (though I'm guessing they're not thinking about that market).
Really smart people have been trying to use Raman spectroscopy to solve this problem for decades at this point (early patents go to early 2000s). Apple is an extremely strong hardware vendor, and I wish them luck, but I would not hold my breath for this. Plus, I'm guessing they will not open the signal up for looping, which would really leave the T*DM community out to dry.
cookingmyserver
Honestly, none of those sound like blockers for the use case I and many other diabetics would like - monitoring for general blood sugar responses (rough curve) after eating. Sure, you wouldn't be able to use the measurements to dose insulin or even measure your actual (numeric) glucose level, but measuring my A1C every three months is good enough to do that in mine and many other cases. I've had my blood sugar controlled through diet and metformin with it being in the range of 5.9 - 6.2. I could do so much better if I had a better understanding of how my body, specifically, reacts to certain foods, mealtimes, routines (exercise after eating), etc.
It would be super helpful to know (relative to other foods) how my body reacts to claimed low-carb foods. Is there a large spike (don't need to know the number) or is it a much more flat curve? How long in general does it take for the line to return to pre-meal levels? What does that trend look like over many months? Heck, I could even run a rudimentary and simple test to do comparative insulin response to a known amount of carbs to see if my insulin response is improving over time (using the period of the curve). I would love to get an alert that hey, we think your glucose level shot up a lot (don't care how much) so that I can remediate it through exercise then and there and avoid that food or timing going forward.
Really hoping the people in Medtech don't make perfect the enemy of good in this case. Although maybe what you listed would still be blockers for even getting general glucose curves. I've been planning on getting a CGM for at least a few months to achieve all of this, but it would be great to just have it in a watch or other simple wearable.
ijustlovemath
Agreed that the value of a CGM is in the change information, and that adding a CGM is probably the biggest quality of life increase for anyone with diabetes. Highly pro CGM if you can get it!
The issue with spectroscopic approaches is the amount of noise can be really hard to disentangle, to the point that you might get really unreliable trend information, where it might even be dangerous if you're making dosing decisions off it. And even if you aren't, getting incorrect trend information doesn't really help you any more than just not knowing it.
analog31
I work in a related area. Non-invasive blood glucose has been a holy grail for analytical science, for decades, and remains a brutally difficult problem.
crazygringo
Yup. But there's hope that computational techniques can extract the signal from the noise.
If they can it'll be huge. Maybe even Ozempic-huge. There's a theory of weight loss that you can objectively manage your weight by never allowing your blood sugar to go over a certain level.
bubblethink
>There's a theory of weight loss that you can objectively manage your weight by never allowing your blood sugar to go over a certain level.
That doesn't work, even if it were true. You can also manage your weight by never allowing the weight on the scale to go over a certain level.
analog31
Indeed, there's always a hope that more advanced computation will crack this nut in the future. That's been a constant for a quarter century too.
RandomUser4976
Nonsense. Tell this to humans that die when their blood glucose is insanely high (500mg/dl), go into DKA and they are SKINNY!!! You’re suggesting 20 calories can make you obese because it raises blood glucose lol! 3-5 grams (12-20 calories) of a mild-glycemic index carbohydrate can send your blood glucose well above 120mg/dl and you would not gain weight because of an extra 12-20 calories. Additionally, 1,200 calories from fat (133 grams of fat) will not spike your blood glucose until 5-12 hours later and you you can gain weight, but that signal is lost because the rise in blood glucose happens 1-3 meals, or even the next day after eating the high fat meal. Blood glucose is VERY important but not predictive of weight. Diet, (the amount and macro composition of calories) is predictive of weight and exercise is predictive of weight. The are other factors, but those are the main predictors.
paulcole
> Glucose sensing on the other hand is a literal pain to test
I’d be hard-pressed to believe that someone trying the newest Dexcom G7 CGM would find it more discomforting than a mosquito bite. And for that literal pain you get 10 days of constant readings on your phone.
> I think demand would be high enough, even if they have to raise prices, that it would easily be worth it.
This is probably correct but I don’t think many non-diabetic people would see an actual benefit from CGM data. It’s the kind of thing people love to think is useful but in reality it’ll be just one more thing to ignore.
spacedcowboy
I have type-1 diabetes, brought on late in life after going through a miserable 2 years of stress after my wife was in a coma due to medical negligence. She came out of it, but the damage was done, she won’t recover, and she is a shadow of who she was. Prolonged extreme stress can trigger type-1 diabetes, and once you have it, you have it for the rest of your life.
Right now, I’m on glipizide which manages (along with a low-carb diet) the situation, but I need the GCM so I know when this “honeymoon” period (before I start needing insulin) starts to end.
Unfortunately I have an extreme needle phobia too. My insurance doesn’t cover the G7, just the G6, so I don’t know if it’s different, but if I try to apply the G6, my heart rate will massively speed up, I will start to hyperventilate, and typically pass out when I click the button on the applicator. I’m out for only a few minutes, but it’s not a pleasant experience… I have to make sure I’m lying on a bed to do it now, after learning the hard way that it’s possible to fall when just sitting down, and head wounds don’t stop bleeding when you’re unconscious.
I would dearly love the ability to measure glucose non-invasively. It’s actually nowhere near as bad for me if I don’t have to click it myself, but my wife wouldn’t understand what to do, and my son is too young for me to feel comfortable asking. Theres no-one else around to help, so sometimes I make a dr appt, for a 10-second “click”. Most of the time I just put up with it. The hope is that the phobia starts to diminish, but so far it hasn’t, and yes I’ve tried psychologists.
Every 10 days, and [sigh] as I write, I recall that today is the day. Again.
lolc
The G7 has a smaller applicator. To me it looks less "needly" than the G6 did. The libre applicator is even smaller. There's less of a need to look at the underside because the applicator is set on the skin without having to pull free the sticker. That could make it easier for you.
But obviously they all have a needle because they need to get something under your skin. Which is I guess what triggers you.
paulcole
I’m T1 as well and the G7 is night and day better than the G6. Total game changer for me.
Hopefully you get access to it soon.
sgmoore
> you get 10 days
Isn't that the key point and means Dexcom/Libre would cost you (or your insurance company) several thousands of dollars/pounds/euros/etc every single year. For many people they already have an iphone and just need an Apple watch which could last for several years.
paulcole
Right… my comment was arguing against the assertion that testing is a literal pain, not a metaphorical pain in the wallet.
Yes, obviously if Apple could figure out how to get accurate BG numbers on an iPhone it would be better than the currently available CGMs.
Aurornis
> I’d be hard-pressed to believe that someone trying the newest Dexcom G7 CGM would find it more discomforting than a mosquito bite.
Not diabetic, but I've tried a set of two of these out of curiosity. The insertion pain is nothing, but having something bonded to your skin with adhesive constantly is kind of a pain.
I also got some irritation at the insertion sites around the 1-week mark, though that might have been because I don't have much fat on that area of my arm.
JoshTko
The market is likely for folks that are unaware that they have some glucose issue.
paulcole
I agree with the idea that the market that this will be sold to is people who believe they will benefit from CGM data.
My point is that CGM data is very very very unlikely to change behavior in the overwhelming majority of people.
officialchicken
Huh? The G7 requires an app on your phone. Being slim and hitting muscle when using any kind of subcutaneous device burns like hell.
The CGM that wins is the one that doesnt stop working when batteries die. Or piercing the skin.
zdw
Note that this isn't the Blood Oxygen sensor (Masimo being the other party in that case), which is still stuck in court.
jurmous
The blood oxygen sensor does work outside the US
bqmjjx0kac
I'm in the US and I totally forgot about the blood oxygen patent fiasco. I have an Apple Watch Series 8 and it continues to work. Maybe it's only newer models that are affected?
(Aha, this article says it's Series 9 and Ultra 2 that are affected: <https://www.tomsguide.com/wellness/smartwatches/apple-wins-p...>.)
andriesm
Wow! Really - this is the one patent-restricted feature I was hoping they were going to solve. I'm curious if a decent quality blood oxygen meter could give me additional data about my sleep apnea. I've previously trief several blood oxygen meters ordered from Amazon, and the results were very low accuracy and low confidence, and the only decent ones couldn't log data continuously over time. (At least not when I bought a few different ones a handful of years ago)
buddy27
Oura gives an averaged overnight blood oxygen reading, and gives insight into breathing regularity and any disturbances that it caught.
https://support.ouraring.com/hc/en-us/articles/7328398760851...
procaryote
Perhaps you could try a Garmin watch or activity band? Afaict they don't have the same geo restriction. They're less smart as smart watches go, but in return they have better battery life
genewitch
I have an amazfit bip 2 or 3 and iirc I can enable spo2 monitoring "constantly" I don't because mine is always 99 so I shut it off and just test manually.
It tracks movement and breathing during sleep. I think it now tracks snoring too, wakeups, rem/deep sleep times, and steps, heart rate, and stress levels.
The app is called zepp and I don't know if any of this is exportable but I only care about a cheap watch that has heartrate on it.
eps
Pretty much any modern Garmin will do that really well.
MartinMond
Did you try the ones from https://getwellue.com/? In my informal testing against “medical-grade” SPO2 monitors they were accurate and they record all night long.
unsupp0rted
Mine doesn't seem to. I have a US Apple Watch that I use outside the US all the time. Non-US account/app store too.
jurmous
I was reading it is based on the part numbers and it is a different number for US bought watches.
If number ends with LW/A you will not have it
plausibility
My understanding is it's like iPhone purchased in Japan always having the shutter noise no matter where they're taking a picture.
Apple Watches purchased and activated in USA after the patent lawsuit cut off date won't have the feature enabled, even if you travel or move.
adrr
Blocked by the International Trade Commission from being imported which is why watches prior to block still work. Patent case ended up in a hung jury trial with all but 1 juror siding with Apple.
bschne
Aside: I was surprised to read "dental caries" in the list of things detectable through similar methods in the court filing screenshot in this post. Is that about a device that could optically detect caries from tooth surfaces through similar principles?
schiffern
If you've ever put a bright light up to your teeth in a mirror, it's pretty incredibly how translucent dental enamel actually is, and the level of internal detail you can see just by eye.
nkrisc
That’s how dentists check for issues as well: they very briefly shine a light through your teeth and capture a picture the resulting shadow.
genewitch
"Light"?
Most light won't make electrons frolic in your body.
hombre_fatal
Also a nice way to realize how cracked your teeth might be.
benmccann
Check out https://www.perceptive.io/
pyaamb
This is great news and I can only hope for something similar to transpire with e-ink patents. fingers crossed
userbinator
Many of those may be actually getting close to expiry if not expired already - the technology is over 20 years old by now.
unsupp0rted
I remember doing a report in high school chemistry class, 75 years ago, on the promise of e-ink technology.
choeger
You talked about e-ink in high school in 1950?
bonestamp2
interesting, what kinds of things are being held back in the meantime? Or, just price/competition?
friendzis
Most good inventions are "obvious" in hindsight.
drannex
This is why patents are Regressive and should be done away with. They no longer protect small-time inventors, only corporations. They stifle all innovation.
procaryote
The original point of a patent is a good one: document your work publicly and in return get a window of time to profit from said work. It was intended to improve innovation by making people not hide their work.
It wasn't really designed for people patenting vague concepts, math or ideas.
If you build a better mousetrap, a patent is pretty good. If you have a vague idea you might show ads in elevators, you should A: just be shot, and B: not get a patent
codedokode
But today with software you can publish just a generic description and do not disclose actual algorithms and formulas, so there is no value for everyone else. For example, you could patent a program that "chooses the best investment options using AI" without describing any details even if you don't know how to actually implement this.
(Well after I posted this comment you can't anymore)
pembrook
Patents come from a quaint time when startup capital was non-existent.
Today, they are simply a giant anchor on the speed of innovation.
The software world has flourished with effectively very little patent protection and very lax IP enforcement.
And in the hardware world China quickly commoditizes and copies everything, regardless of US patents anyways.
The only real moats in modern capitalism come from talent, marketing, distribution, and regulation.
Patents are now just a weaponized form of regulation useful for kneecapping domestic competitors. They hurt the local economy more than helping it.
m0llusk
No, this has had extensive research. Patents slowed down both inventors and industries deploying new technologies. The story that it would enable a period of time for direct profits turned out to be false. There is more to be made by simply moving forward with adoption of new inventions.
DecentShoes
If they exist, they should be 3 - 5 years. Not 20. That's insane and creates monopolies.
tombert
At least it’s not as terrible as the US copyright system, which is more than 90 years.
varjag
An R&D cycle itself can be 5 years, a 1-2 year patent approval time is typical. Industrializing research for production is at least a year, not to mention finding a market fit. And you are supposed to recoup all that in 3-5 years? Just tooling amortization can take that much.
brookst
Lots of small companies only get funding because investors believe the IP will be worth something even if the company fails. I’m not wild about our current patent situation, but we have to recognize that a less restrictive recision would impact small business pretty hard.
bawolff
Shoe goes on both feet though. Lots of companies are not viable due to the legal burden of one small neccesary part being patented.
mplewis
I don't care about the impact on small business. I care about the impact on real people being able to access life-saving technology.
renewiltord
Well, you can live in that world by observing China. IP doesn’t exist. All things are open source. You have to be careful doing things but people still do them and a cheaper product shows up on Aliexpress the next day.
bawolff
Some are more obvious than others.
I think that is a major problem with patents - all inventions are treated the same. However there is a big difference between something reasonably new that took a decade of r&d work to get right and a tiny change to an existing invention which took a day and is an obvious logical progession from what came before which everyone would have came up with.
tzs
I once attended a patent trial and it was interesting. The defendant claimed the patent was obvious.
The plaintiff had some pretty good evidence that it was in fact not obvious:
• The defendant was one of the largest companies in the field with a very accomplished and impressive R&D department. The plaintiff introduced documents they got from the defendant during discovery where the CEO had called solving the specific problem that the patent solved to be vital to the future existence of their company and made solving it a top priority. Yet they failed to make any progress on it.
• Two of the other largest companies in the field, also with impressive R&D departments, had also been working on this and failed to come up with anything.
The jury found that the patent was obvious.
What I think happened is that both plaintiff and defendant had presentations that explained to the jury what the patent did. Both presentations did a great job of finding a problem from everyday life that was kind of analogous to the problem the patent involved, and translating the patent's solution to that everyday life problem. The presentations made it easy to understand the gist of what the patent did.
There's a natural tendency to mistake easy to understand for obviousness, and I think that by explaining the invention in a way that made it easy to understand it also made the jury think it was obvious.
But if you don't explain the invention in a way that the jury can understand how are they supposed to be able to make decisions?
This reminds me of college. Many a time I'd read some theorem named after a mathematician and think "how the heck does this obvious theorem get named after someone?". The answer is that it wasn't at all obvious when that mathematician proved it 400 years ago. I'm seeing it after 400 years of people figuring out how to present the subject in a way that makes that theorem obvious.
That reminds me of a classic math joke: A professor says "It is obvious that" and writes an equation. Then he pauses, and says "...wait, is that obvious?". He goes to another board and starts deriving the equation, not saying anything while doing this. After 20 minutes he had gotten it, says "I was right! It is obvious!" and goes back and resumes his lecture.
potamic
Could you elaborate on what the patent was or share the patent number?
jjk166
The patent law definition of obvious is different from the common understanding.
Specifically, it only counts if it was obvious before the patent filing to a person of ordinary skill. It's actually really hard for a patent claim to be rejected for obviousness. A poking stick for pressing buttons on a TV without getting up counts as a non-obvious invention.
ljsprague
Like the Blonsky birthing table for instance.
ikekkdcjkfke
I believe apple is struggling to implement the 5g spec due to patents, how do you square that? Just confuses me
g_p
A lot of the patents needed to implement mobile standards are designated as "standards essential patents", meaning that the party bringing them up the table in the standards committees needs to disclose them and agree to licence them on a FRAND basis to anyone who asks (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory).
In many cases there are patent pools you can license that cover large areas of the standards, without needing to negotiate each one individually.
Many very fundamental parts of 4G/ 5G are patented and you'll not be able to get your device to work on the network without those patents, so Apple will have licensed those patents under FRAND for their new C1 modem.
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renewiltord
Indeed, therefore if an invention is “obvious” in hindsight it must be good ;)
medhir
Is this patent the only thing that is holding them back?
Or are there still quite a few challenges ahead and this is merely one roadblock removed.
bilsbie
How accurate is it. I loved having a cgm for a few weeks. It’s over the counter now.
The strangest thing was keeping my blood sugar spikes really low but still gaining weight. I didn’t think my body could really store fat without a spike but apparently it can.
bobmcnamara
Consider the long term sugar available as integrating the curve, minus a basal rate, minus additional expenditures.
The spikes don't help either.
wdb
I wish there was a way to measure blood pressure via an Apple Watch :) Don't think that's feasible
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oliyoung
Is this a software or hardware patent, because afaics the sensors on the newer Watches would already support this so it could just be a software update?
12 of the 23 claims invalidated by being "obvious", in light of previous patents.
The rest invalidated against Apple, through "alternative claim construction". That is, Apple's reading of the patent and its specific claims, showed it was narrower in scope than their particular usage.
None of this seems really surprising, and whilst it does open the door for Apple, it probably doesn't much open the door for other implementations to flourish - not without a lawyer guiding your particular tech choices.