Apple Won 66 Patents Today covering Smart Fabrics, Memoji creation UI, Personal Area Networks for Wearables & more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 66 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we briefly cover a series of granted patents cover smart fabrics, Memoji creation, Apple Watch and personal area network communication for wearable devices that Apple acquired from Intel. As always, we wrap up this week's granted patent report with our traditional listing of the remaining granted patents that were issued to Apple today.
Smart Fabrics for Devices & Accessories
Apple's granted patent covers a fabric-based item that may include fabric such as knitted fabric. The knitted fabric may be formed from conductive yarns and insulating yarns. Conductive yarns may form signal paths and may include insulating cores covered with conductive coatings such as metal coatings.
Open circuits may be formed in the yarns by removing metal from the insulating cores at selected locations within the yarns. Each loop with an open circuit will have a first portion of the metal that is electrically isolated from a second portion of the metal by a gap.
Electrical components can be coupled to loops. Each electrical component may span a respective open circuit in a loop and may have a first terminal that is coupled to the first portion of metal in the loop and a second terminal that is coupled to the second portion of metal in the loop.
Apple's patent FIG. 1 below is a schematic diagram of an illustrative fabric-based item; FIG. 2 is a top view of illustrative knitted fabric of the type that may be provided with electrical components.
Smart fabrics will eventually allow surfaces on a fabric to provide users with control features like increase/decrease volume of your music and so forth on a sleeve of a jacket.
In this granted patent, the focus is on the creation of smart fabrics that could eventually be used in an electronic device or an accessory for an electronic device such as a MacBook, a computer monitor containing an embedded computer, an iPad, an iPhone, an Apple Watch, a pendant device, a headphone or earpiece device, a device embedded in eyeglasses or other equipment worn on a user's head, or other wearable or miniature device, a television, a computer display that does not contain an embedded computer, a gaming device, a navigation device, an embedded system such as a system in which fabric-based item #10 is mounted in a kiosk, in an automobile, airplane, or other vehicle, other electronic equipment, or equipment that implements the functionality of two or more of these devices.
If desired, item 10 may be a removable external case for electronic equipment, may be a strap, may be a wrist band or head band, may be a removable cover for a device, may be a case or bag that has straps or that has other structures to receive and carry electronic equipment and other items, may be a necklace or arm band, may be a wallet, sleeve, pocket, or other structure into which electronic equipment or other items may be inserted, may be part of a chair, sofa, or other seating (e.g., cushions or other seating structures), may be part of an item of clothing or other wearable item (e.g., a hat, belt, wrist band, headband, shirt, pants, shoes, etc.), or may be any other suitable fabric-based item.
Apple's granted patent 10,577,732 was originally filed in Q1 2017 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Avatar (Memoji, Animoji) Creation UI
Apple was granted a detailed patent covering Memoji creation with a detailed user interface. The techniques provide electronic devices with faster, more efficient methods and interfaces for creating and editing avatars. Such methods and interfaces optionally complement or replace other methods for creating avatars. Such methods and interfaces reduce the cognitive burden on a user and produce a more efficient human-machine interface. For battery-operated computing devices, such methods and interfaces conserve power and increase the time between battery charges. Below are various patent figures related to Memoji creation.
Apple's granted patent 10,580,221 was originally filed in Q3 2028 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office. This patent is an extremely detailed patent and for those wanting to review this patent click here.
A few other Granted Patents of Interest
Other granted patents of interest include an Apple Watch patent titled "Rotatable input mechanism having adjustable output" and one that Apple acquired from Intel titled "Personal area network communication for wearable devices."
Above are patent figures related to Apple Watch. FIG. 11B shows a top-down cross-section view of the rotatable input mechanism in a second state; FIG. 12B shows a top-down cross-section view of the rotatable input mechanism in a second state.
It's interesting that Apple's engineering teams chose to illustrate Apple Watch in this granted patent with a circular interface. Though considering that it's not a design patent, we can't hold Apple to that design.
The Remaining Patents granted to Apple Today
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