Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 68 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. In this particular report we briefly cover four patents. One covers a new multiband adjustable lighting system using infrared light illumination; a second covers illuminated display borders for iPad, MacBooks, iMac, TV and more; a third covers a smart fabric based Apple TV remote; and lastly, one covers an Apple Watch invention. 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.

In 2020 Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple Invents a Possible Next-Gen Apple Watch Digital Crown that doubles as a Touch ID mechanism."

Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals another Apple engineering team is working on making the Digital Crown more relevant by adding Touch ID to the mechanism.

A future Apple Watch, according to Apple, may include a housing defining a side surface of the electronic watch, a transparent cover coupled to the housing and defining a front surface of the electronic watch, an image-sensing element, and a crown extending from the side of the housing and defining an imaging surface.

The crown may include a light-directing feature configured to direct, onto the image-sensing element, an image of an object in contact with the imaging surface, such as a finger.

A series of patent figures beginning with FIG. 3 below illustrates is a partial cross-sectional view of an example wearable electronic device having a crown with a light-directing feature and a user rolling their finger across the unit that will obtain biometric as a form of Touch ID.

For more details, review Apple's granted patent 11906937.

Patently Apple posted a patent report in 2018 titled "Fabric Control Device." Today, Apple was granted their fifth patent for this invention under 11905629.

Apple was granted another Project Titan Patent titled "Multiband Adjustable Lights." The patent cover a system such as a vehicle or other system may have components that emit light such as headlights and other lights. Headlights may be used to provide visible light illumination of a roadway. This allows vehicle occupants to view the roadway at night and in other low ambient lighting conditions such as at dawn or dusk, when weather reduces ambient light, or when a vehicle is traveling through a dark tunnel. Visible illumination may also be used to assist autonomous driving systems. If desired, an autonomous driving system may use infrared image data and other data from infrared sensors. For example, infrared illumination may help light up a roadway at infrared wavelengths so that an infrared image sensor associated with an autonomous driving system can monitor the roadway. In an illustrative arrangement, a headlight may be operated in high-beam and low-beam modes in which visible light illumination is adjusted while simultaneously providing infrared light illumination. The infrared light illumination may be provided in a pattern that does not diminish in coverage as the headlight is switched between the high-beam and low-beam modes. For more details review granted patent 11906124.

Apple was granted a patent titled "Electronic Devices With Illuminated Display Borders." Apple's granted patent covers an electronic device (iPad, TV, MacBook, iMac & more) may have a display mounted in a housing. The display may be mounted on a front side of the device and the housing may have a housing wall on the rear side of the device. The display may be formed from an array of pixels configured to display an image for a user. Pixel-free border areas that run along the edges of the array of pixels may be provided with an edge illuminator. The edge illuminator may provide illumination to the border areas during operation of the device. The edge illuminator may have crystalline semiconductor light-emitting diode dies, backlit liquid crystal devices or electrophoretic display components, or may have a light guide that is supplied with illumination from a light-emitting diode. For more on this, review granted patent 11910690.

This Week's Remaining Granted Patents