The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 54 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this last IP report of the day we briefly cover patents relating to Apple's TrueDepth camera system for Face ID, and one relating to the future use of hover gestures controlling aspects of iOS. We wrap up this week's granted patent report with our traditional listing of the remaining granted patents that were issued to Apple today.

TrueDepth Face ID System with Special Bracket Assembly

Apple's newly granted patent 10,268,234 covers their invention relating to their TrueDepth camera system referred to as a "vision system" that's supported by a special bracket assembly. In order for Face ID to function properly, the TrueDepth camera must be set firmly in place on your iPhone or iPad so as to ensure that when using Face ID, the system is able to match your face to what's on file in the secure enclave.

Technically speaking, the image of your face isn't what's stored in the enclave. Apple's A11 and A12 Bionic processors transform the depth map of your face (via an infrared image) into a mathematical representation and compares that representation to the enrolled facial data. Being math, there's no room for error. So the bracket holding the camera in place plays a crucial role.

Apple's patent FIG. 18 below illustrates a plan view of the transparent cover and an alignment module secured with the transparent cover; FIG. 12 illustrates a side view of the alignment module 608, the vision system 610, and the bracket assembly 640; FIG. 26 illustrates a side view of an electronic device using a vision system to determine dimensional information of a user.

Apple's patent FIG. 27 above illustrates a plan view of a dot pattern #1130 projected onto an image #1140 of the user showing various spatial relationships of dots of the dot pattern with respect to each other. It should be noted that the dot pattern projected onto the user is the result of the light rays emitted from the electronic device.

Touch and Hover Sensing

Today Apple was granted their second granted patent for "Touch and Hover Sensing" under number 10,268,303. Their first granted patent was issued in 2016.   Why touch your screen and grime it up when scrolling using an in-air hover sensing feature could allow you to simply gesture the movement of scrolling and the hover control will perform that task.

Apple's patent FIG. 5 below illustrates an object outside of a space directly above an example touch screen.

This granted patent improves capacitive touch and hover sensing from their first granted patent. In this granted patent, an alternating current (AC) ground shield may be used to enhance the hover sensing capability of a sensor array, such as a capacitive touch sensor array. Electrical signals, such as AC signals, transmitted to a capacitive touch sensor array in a touch screen can generate electric fields that extend outward from the sensor array through a touch surface to detect a touch on the touch surface or an object hovering over the touch surface. You could review Apple's patent claims to see more on the addition of an AC shield to this invention click here.

The Remaining Patents granted to Apple Today

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