The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 55 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover Apple's granted patent 9,201,237 titled "Diffraction-based sensing of mirror position." Apple's invention relates to providing improved scanning devices, as well as apparatus and methods for 3D mapping using such devices. Part of this invention was covered in a secondary invention that we reported on back in September covering a dual-axis scanning mirror. Part of the 3D mapping technology that Apple acquired from PrimeSense could be applied to computer vision which is associated with navigation systems for an autonomous vehicle.

Apple's granted patent was originally filed in Q1 2013 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Patently Apple presents only a brief summary of granted patents with associated graphics for journalistic news purposes as each Granted Patent is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any Granted Patent should be read in its entirety for full details. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Comments are reviewed daily from 5am to 6pm MST and sporadically over the weekend.