The record first. On February 1, 2022, AliveCor, Inc. was granted US11234604B2, "Blood pressure monitor" (CPC A61B 5/02416 and 5/021). The named inventor is David E. Albert. The claim covers measuring blood pressure from a wearable form factor — a vital sign that, done to clinical standard, has real medical and reimbursement value.
Follow the tiering. Consumer wearables compete on breadth of sensing; clinical specialists compete on depth and clearance. AliveCor sits in the latter camp, where a cleared blood-pressure measurement is worth more than a longer feature list because it can plug into care pathways and, potentially, reimbursement. The patent stakes that clinical tier.
The business framing is the moat shape. In the consumer tier, IP is one of many levers; in the clinical tier, the combination of IP plus regulatory clearance is the moat, and it is durable because clearance is slow and expensive to replicate. A blood-pressure grant from a clinical specialist is a marker of a defensible high-assurance position.
Comparability discipline applies. "Wearable health" lumps together consumer fitness sensing and clinical-grade measurement, but the economics and barriers differ sharply. The filing pins this claim to clinical blood-pressure measurement — useful for placing a player in the right tier, and easy to flatten under the generic "health wearable."
What the document does not disclose is the economics. It is a device claim, not a P&L or a clearance status. It will not tell you accuracy, reimbursement, or revenue. The grant establishes a clinical-tier position; the financial payoff is undisclosed.
For investors, the throughline is this: wearable health splits into a consumer arms race and a clinical-clearance moat, and the patent record shows which players are staking the harder, more defensible tier.