Friday, January 9, 2026
Page 3
Ninth Circuit:
Claims Based on Apple’s Refusal to Share Watch Data Fail
Opinion Says Update That Stopped App Creator From Accessing Health Input for Its Heart Rate Monitors Does Not Rise to Antitrust Liability Because There Is No ‘Duty to Deal’ With Competitors
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday affirmed an order granting summary judgment to Apple Inc. in an antitrust lawsuit filed by a fellow Silicon Valley technology company that accused the device giant of illegally shutting out third-party app developers from accessing previously available heart rate information gathered through the use of the defendant’s watches by creating an update that was incompatible with the plaintiff’s products.
Declaring that antitrust laws do not operate to force a company to do business with a competitor, the court affirmed the order on different grounds than those relied upon by Senior District Court Judge Jeffrey S. White of the Northern District of California, who opined that Apple’s conduct was protected by the Ninth Circuit’s 2010 decision in Allied Orthopedic Appliances Inc. v. Tyco Health Care Group LP.
That decision established that “a design change that improves a product by providing a new benefit to consumers does not violate” the Sherman Antitrust Act, codified at 15 U.S.C. §1 et seq., “absent some associated anticompetitive conduct.” Declining to address the impact of Allied Orthopedic, Circuit Judge Michelle T. Friedland, writing for the court, said:
“We need not decide whether Apple’s decision to stop sharing…data with third-party app developers was separate from its product improvement and thus should be evaluated as associated conduct under Allied Orthopedic. Even if it were associated conduct,…[The plaintiff] would still need to prove that [it] was anticompetitive…..[T]he undisputed evidence shows as a matter of law that Apple’s refusal to share [the] data was not anticompetitive.”
Senior Circuit Judge Marsha S. Berzon and Circuit Judge Salvador Mendoza Jr. joined in Friedland’s opinion.
Asserting the antitrust claims was AliveCor Inc., a Mountain View-based company that released, in 2017, a replacement watchband—known as the “KardiBand”—for Apple Watches that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration to take electrocardiograms on demand, relying in part on an algorithm created by Apple.
AliveCor claimed that Apple changed the game in 2018 by replacing the so-called “Heart Rate Path Optimizer” (“HRPO”) algorithm with one known as the “Heart Rate Neural Network” (“HRNN”). Shortly after the new program was adopted, AliveCor observed that its technology could no longer accurately recognize episodes of atrial fibrillation; it was forced to discontinue KardiaBand in 2019.
Apple had released its own feature to detect irregular heart rhythms shortly after the introduction of HRNN.
In 2021, AliveCor filed a complaint against Apple, asserting claims under California law and §2 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits taking anti-competitive steps to monopolize markets. The plaintiff asserted that it “was an innovator that helped change” the perception of the watches as “an extension of [a] smartphone” to one which recognized that they “were the perfect device[s] to monitor…for potentially life-threatening conditions” and alleged:
“Apple’s anticompetitive conduct was and remains rotten to the core. AliveCor…brings this antitrust action to right past wrongs and to permit future competition, so that Apple can no longer exclude it and other heartrate analysis providers from the market. U.S. consumers deserve the right to have the best possible heartrate analysis made available to them. This lawsuit is the first step in that direction.”
After the parties each filed competing motions for summary judgment, White ruled in favor of Apple and judgment was entered for the defendant on Feb. 6, 2024. On appeal, AliveCor challenged only the ruling on the alleged Sherman Act violation.
Monopoly Power
Friedland wrote:
“Apple does not dispute that it has monopoly power in the relevant market for heart rhythm analysis apps on the Apple Watch. The only issue here is therefore whether a reasonable jury could find that Apple engaged in anticompetitive conduct. AliveCor theorizes that Apple eliminated competition in the market for heart rhythm analysis apps on the Apple Watch ‘by denying third parties access to HRPO-generated data (even while Apple continued to use it), and then by removing HRPO from the Apple Watch entirely.’ Apple argues that AliveCor’s theory fails as a matter of law to establish anticompetitive conduct in violation of Section 2. We agree with Apple.”
Saying that “[d]etermining whether a monopolist’s conduct is anticompetitive” can be complicated by the fact that the means of illicit exclusion are countless,” she pointed out that “courts have devised some specific categories for ‘various types of conduct that have the potential to harm competition’ ” and created “applicable framework[s]” applicable to each group. One such class is a refusal to deal with competitors.
Opining that “AliveCor’s central theory—that Apple ‘sought to break’ competing technology by ‘denying third parties access to HRPO-generated data’— falls within that category,” she cited the 2004 U.S. Supreme Court case in Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko LLP, which affirmed that the Sherman Act does not restrict the right of a business to exercise its own discretion as to the parties with which it chooses to deal.
She remarked:
“AliveCor, at bottom, seeks a ruling that Apple was obligated to provide its HRPO data to its competitors, both before and after it stopped generating HRPO data. Such a ruling would implicate the same concerns regarding incentives to innovate…that the Supreme Court articulated in Trinko in explaining why the antitrust laws generally impose no duty to deal with competitors. AliveCor therefore needs to establish an exception from that general rule to succeed on its Section 2 claims….It cannot do so.”
Applicable Framework
AliveCor asserted that the refusal-to-deal framework does not apply to its claims, arguing that “the Apple Watch is a platform designed to interoperate with third-party apps” and that “changing a product” that functions as an “interoperable complement to other products in a way to kill competition is analyzed as its own form of potentially anticompetitive conduct,” citing Allied Orthopedic.
Rejecting this contention, Friedland said:
“But AliveCor simultaneously maintains that it is not challenging the product change itself—the incorporation of HRNN data—but instead the denial of access to HRPO data once the change was made. So our focus has to be on the refusal to continue to provide HRPO data—which…maps perfectly onto the refusal-to-deal doctrine.”
She added:
“Indeed, because AliveCor’s competing feature fundamentally relies on Apple’s sharing of HRPO data, AliveCor’s claims raise the exact free-riding concerns animating the general rule that there is no duty to deal with competitor….AliveCor cannot avoid ‘the hard road of refusal to deal doctrine’ by attempting to ‘recast’ Apple’s conduct as something else when the substance of that conduct is a refusal to deal.”
Acknowledging that a refusal to cooperate with rivals can amount to anticompetitive conduct under the “essential facilities doctrine” if a competitor is denied access to something that is deemed essential to competition, she noted that the principle is recognized in the Ninth Circuit even though “[t]he Supreme Court has never endorsed” it.
Considering the application of the doctrine, she reasoned:
“No reasonable jury could find…that the data that AliveCor seeks is an essential facility. It is undisputed that Apple’s own heart rhythm analysis feature,…which AliveCor alleges competes in the market for heart rhythm analysis apps on the Apple Watch, does not use HRPO data.”
The case is AliveCor Inc. v. Apple Inc., 24-1392.
Copyright 2026, Metropolitan News Company