The deadline for Samsung to respond to the complaint that university plaintiffs The Research Foundation for The State University of New York (RF SUNY), Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), and University of Connecticut (UConn) filed against it in early April has been pushed out to August 10. Those plaintiffs have now filed a second complaint, also in the Eastern District of Texas, this one targeting Xiaomi and Zepp Health in a single complaint ( 2:23-cv-00353), likewise targeting the provision of "physiological monitors"—including certain Xiaomi- and Zepp-branded smartwatches—and related software products that support heart tracking capabilities such as atrial fibrillation analysis and electrocardiogram recording.
The plaintiffs allege that joinder in this newer complaint is proper because Zepp's United State SEC Form 20-F demonstrates that Zepp manufactures Xiaomi products for distribution by Xiaomi within the US. They assert seven (8,417,326; 9,408,576; 9,713,428; 9,986,921; 10,278,647; 10,285,601; 10,653,362) of the nine patents (8,718,753; 9,872,652) already in suit against Samsung. For background coverage of the these patents, as well as purported interactions with Samsung, see RPX's "Latest Health Monitoring Smartwatch Litigation Targets Samsung" (April 2023).
Litigation in this area—health tracking features deployed through wearables—has been ever more profuse. Perhaps top of mind in this area has been a Central District of California suit filed by Masimo against Apple over the alleged infringement of certain pulse oximetry patents, as well as over the misappropriation of alleged trade secrets, in tandem with a parallel investigation before the International Trade Commission (ITC). That district court litigation led to a mistrial earlier this year as to certain trade secret misappropriate claims, as the ITC requested and received briefing from the parties as to a set of issues, most related to the establishment of a domestic industry, after the Administrative Law Judge returned an initial final determination that Apple violated one Masimo patent claim (through the importation of certain Apple Watches).
Similarly, AliveCor, Inc. won against Apple before the ITC in a separate investigation, but that set of disputes awaits the resolution of several related appeals from PTAB cancelations of the electrocardiogram technology patents at their center. A suit filed by Joseph Wiesel, a clinical assistant professor in cardiology at New York University School of Medicine, against Apple over atrial fibrillation detection functionalities, remains stayed to await the outcome of an ex parte reexam proceeding (after an unsuccessful inter partes review), while new litigation in the pulse oximetry space—against Alphabet (Google), Apple, Garmin, Masimo, and Zepp Health—is just getting underway. Goldberg Segalla LLP, Stamoulis & Weinblatt LLC, and Ward, Smith & Hill, PLLC represent the university plaintiffs in this litigation. Their cases have been assigned to District Judge Robert W. Schroeder III. 7/31, Eastern District of Texas
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