Apple has won the legal fight against AliveCor regarding the heart rate tracking technology in the Apple Watch. AliveCor accused Apple of unfairly limiting access to certain heart rate data from the Apple Watch, which it thought was unfair to the competition. However, a US District Court judge has ruled in favor of Apple, saying there’s no need for a trial over the matter.
For those unaware, the main reason behind the lawsuit was due to changes made to the Apple Watch’s heart rate algorithm in 2018, switching from Heart Rate Oath Optimizer (HRPO) to Heart Rate Neural Network (HRNN) with the release of watchOS 5. AliveCor argued that these changes negatively affected its feature, SmartRhythm, which relies on the older algorithm.
In May 2021, AliveCor filed an antitrust lawsuit, claiming that Apple should have continued providing heart rate data using the old algorithm alongside the new one. However, Apple disagreed, saying the new algorithm is more accurate. Apple also argued that it always gave developers access to heart rate data, including through specific tools in the Apple Watch’s software.
US District Judge Jeffrey White sided with Apple in a summary judgment, stating that the case shouldn’t go to jury trial.
However, the exact details of the decision haven’t been made public due to confidentiality concerns, but Apple says a public version of the decision should be available in a few weeks. Apple says today’s outcome confirms that it is not anti-competitive.
However, AliveCor says that it is deeply disappointed and strongly disagrees with the court’s decision to dismiss our anti-competition case, and we plan to appeal.
Moreover, this ruling doesn’t affect a separate patent dispute between Apple and AliveCor concerning the ECG functionality of the Apple Watch.
We will get more details once the public version is released.