The legal battle between Apple and AliveCor has tangled further. The Cupertino tech giant has filed a counter-lawsuit against AliveCor claiming that the company infringed multiple Apple Watch ECG patents and was trying to benefit from Apple Watch ECG tech after its own ECG products failed.
AliveCore is an American manufacturer of ECG-related medical equipment founded by David Albert. The company received FDA approval for its first medical accessory for Apple Watch the “EKG Kardia band” in 2017 and in 2018, the ECG app was launched in Apple Watch Series 4.
In 2021, AliveCor sued the Cupertino tech giant for illegally monopolizing the market for heart rate apps for its smartwatch and intentionally changing the heart rate algorithm that made it impossible for “EKG Kardia band” companion iOS app “SmarthRhtym” to send notifications to users to take an ECG on their Apple Watch and rendered the band useless.
AliveCor also filed a complaint at the International Trade Commission (ITC) to bar the U.S. importation of Apple Watch over the infringement of three AliveCor patents. In June 2022, the ITC judge ruled in favor of AliveCor.
Apple files new patent infringement lawsuit against AliveCor to “set the record straight”
As the filing posted on Scribd, the Cupertino tech company states that AliveCor has unlawfully infringed upon its intellectual property as its KardiaMobile, KardiaMobile Card, and Kardia app infringe on Apple Watch tech.
Furthermore, the company said that the new filing would set the record straight as to who is the real pioneer of ECG tech.
Apple is the pioneering innovator, having researched, developed, and patented core, foundational technologies before AliveCor came into existence. AliveCor’s litigation campaign is nothing more than an attempt to siphon from the success of Apple technologies it did not invent, all the while selling products that rely on foundational ECG innovations that Apple patented years before AliveCor came to be.
Apple is seeking a permanent injunction to stop further infringement and AliveCor to pay damages and legal fees because its patent infringement claims have caused irreparable harm to the tech giant.
