Brian Merchant: An entrepreneur's $60 million legal battle to stop Apple from steamrolling startups

When Apple executives first knocked on the medical device entrepreneur Joe Kiani's door, he was thrilled. Why wouldn't he be?

Kiani, an electrical engineer by training, had founded the Irvine company Masimo in 1989. Over the next three decades, he and his colleagues built Masimo into an industry leader in pulse oximetry, used to take readings of the amount of oxygen in a person's blood — a crucial, sometimes life-saving, measurement.

So when, in 2013, "Apple came and said, we want to work with you," Kiani recalls, he saw it as an opportunity to bring an innovation that could help millions to the largest stage possible.

Kiani and the Apple executives had long, involved, and, what felt to him, productive meetings. It even seemed that Apple was interested in acquiring Masimo. "They asked us, 'Where do we see the market going?,' 'How does the tech work?,' to share with them the regulatory pathways. All the leadership was there, saying, 'whatever you need, we're going to work this out.'"

Now, 10 years later, Kiani is locked in an acrimonious legal battle with the world's biggest tech company, alleging Apple infringed on his patents and stole trade secrets. If Kiani wins, it could stop Apple Watches, which are manufactured in China, from being imported into the U.S.

According to the complaint in his case, unbeknownst to Kiani, back when the two companies started meeting, Apple hatched a plan, known internally as Project Everest, to obtain or emulate Masimo's technology without paying Kiani a cent. Instead of as "smart recruiting."