Apple Wins Second Patent for Future Hardware that will Include Environmental Sensors that could detect Dangerous Gasses
In mid-February 2019 Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple granted their Fifth Patent on Integrating Gas and other Environmental Sensors into Future iDevices and Macs." Today The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 52 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. In this particular report we cover Apple's second granted patent for this specific invention relating to gas sensors for a future iPhone that contains new patent claims.
Apple's patent FIG. 1 below is a perspective view of an illustrative electronic device with an environmental sensor; FIG. 10 is a cross-sectional side view of an illustrative environmental sensor having a microphone sensor data processing circuit that processes microphone sensor data from a stand-alone microphone and having a gas sensor data processing circuit that processes gas sensor data from a stand-alone gas sensor.
Apple's first granted patent focused their patent claims on the mechanics of a housing containing a circuit board with a sensor attached. In today's second granted patent, patent claim #1 focuses on a "Sensor package."
In patent Claim #2 Apple lists a more focused set of sensors differing from the original granted patent. The new group of sensors covering the following: "a microphone, a gas sensor, a smoke detector, a pressure sensor, a temperature sensor, and a humidity sensor.
In the patent Claim #3 and #4 Apple adds "The sensor package defined in claim 1, wherein the first environmental sensor comprises a microphone; in Claim #4 Apple adds: "wherein the first environmental sensor comprises a gas sensor that is configured to measure a concentration of a gas.
Refining their patent claims is important to ensure that the design and make up of new environmental sensors are correctly and meticulously described to ensure that Apple is legally protected prior to launching new iPhones with new environmental sensor for a user's safety.
The U.S. Patent Office granted Apple patent 10,545,038 today titled "Electronic devices with environmental sensors." While the main focus of the new environmental sensor are aimed at Apple's #1 product the iPhone, the new sensors could eventually be integrated into additional Apple hardware in the future which Apple states could be an Apple Watch, iPad, MacBooks, iMacs (desktops), gaming equipment, TVs and more.
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