Patently Apple posted a patent application report last July titled "Apple Patent Confirms work on repurposing Touch ID behind the Display of an iOS Device." Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted Apple this patent. Unlike Samsung who has reportedly moved their fingerprint scanner to the backside of their new Galaxy S8 as noted in the leaked graphic below, Apple has moved their Touch ID methodology to behind the display as noted in the patent figure imagery in our cover graphic.

Apple's newly granted patent covers their invention relating to the field of finger sensors.

Apple notes in their granted patent that "An electronic device may include a touch display that includes at least one display layer, and at least one transparent conductive layer thereon defining touch sensing pixels. The electronic device may also include a finger biometric sensor carried by the touch display and that includes a finger biometric sensing layer that includes an array of transparent conductive finger biometric sensing pixels capacitively coupled to the at least one transparent conductive layer of the touch display."

Apple's granted patent 9,582,102 was originally filed in Q1 2015 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Our report on this invention was first posted in July 2016 here. Last week Patently Apple posted a patent application report on this same area of technology in a report titled "Apple introduces us to the Possible Next Generation of Touch ID for iDevices and Far Beyond." For more information on that report, click here

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