Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 41 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. In this particular report we briefly cover a key eye tracking patent covering interactive motion for smartglasses, TVs and displays (Macs and iPad). And 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 this week.

Interactive Motion-Based Eye Tracking Calibration for Future Smartglasses+

Today the US Patent & Trademark Office granted Apple a patent that relates to future smartglasses, VR Headset and displays such as a television, iPad or monitor of a computer.  

The patent notes that eye tracking devices are configured to track persons, especially their eyes, their point of regard or gaze direction. As certain properties of human eyes are different from person to person, usually a calibration procedure is performed to calibrate the eye tracking device, so that the accuracy of the determined gaze or gaze point can be improved.

The main advantage of this invention is, that the execution of the calibration procedure does not follow a fixed procedure but instead can be adapted in dependency of at least one determined control parameter. Especially, this is based on the finding that the captured gaze data provide information, which advantageously can be used to control the execution of the calibration procedure to provide better adaption, especially adaption to the properties and capabilities of the user performing the calibration.

In particular, the system can be implemented as a head mounted system comprising the eye tracking device, which comprises one or more cameras, which are integrated in the head mounted system. This can be for example in the form of glasses, or a helmet, or any other fixture on a user's head.

Apple's patent FIG. 1 below shows a schematic illustration of an eye tracking system (#10), which is configured as a remote system according to a first embodiment of the invention.

The eye tracking system comprises an eye tracking device (#12), which comprises an imaging device which is configured as at least one camera (#14) and capable of capturing images of at least one eye (#16) of a user (#18).

Apple's patent FIG. 2 above shows a schematic illustration of another example of an eye tracking system, which is configured as a pair of smartglasses.

In order to get a solid head start on their competitors, Apple acquired SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI) and this key patent that Apple engineers have added to. To illustrate how advanced they were at the time, below is a promotional video from SensoMotoric at a 2015 tradeshow.

For finer details, review Apple's granted patent 11644896. One could only image how more Apple has advanced this technology since 2015 when that video was taken. 

Microsoft and Samsung have been busy filing new patents for future smartglasses in Europe of late as noted in the patent links below:

Samsung WO2023063533 Wearable Device Comprising Sensor Module

Samsung WO2023059132 Augmented Reality Device

Microsoft US20230099937 + Microsoft WO2023048828 Optically Transparent Antennas on Transparent Substrates

Today’s Remaining Granted Patents