Karimi & Associates Law Firm presents according to Reuters:
On Monday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed that tech giant, Apple must face a patent infringement lawsuit brought by Omni MedSci Inc, a company owned by Mohammed Islam who is a professor at the University of Michigan school of engineering. Omni MedSci is alleging that Apple Watch’s heart rate sensor technology infringed on their patent rights.
The original lawsuit, lodged against Apple in 2018, claimed that the Apple Watch’s heart rate measurement ability infringed on multiple patents owned by Omni MedSci Inc. According to the complaint, professor Islam had several meetings with Apple representatives in his role as Omni’s principal to discuss licensing the patents before it allegedly copied his inventions.
Apple moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the patents are actually owned by the University of Michigan under a provision in the employment agreement between the university and professor Isalm, which says that patents he receives should “be owned by the university” if acquired based on activity that was supported by the university directly or indirectly. Apple’s argument was denied by a United States District Court. Apple appealed that decision, which brought the case to the Federal Circuit, where Apple’s argument got rejected again as the court affirmed the lower court’s decision, stating the language of the provision in question indicates that ”it was meant as a promise of a potential future assignment, not as a present automatic transfer.”
The case is Omni MedSci Inc v. Apple Inc, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, No. 20-1715.