Last week Patently Apple posted a patent report titled "Apple invents a new iPhone concept wherein users could swap out the standard back panel for one with a back-facing display, Glucose meter+." One of specialty back panels was aimed at "medical devices." Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted Apple a patent that relates to a unique medical device accessory that could test for things like a specific virus. Of course this isn't an iPhone killer feature for the masses.

Systems And Accessories For Optical Analysis Of Samples on an iPhone (iPad or MacBook)

Apple's patent covers a test system that may be used to measure samples. In some scenarios, the samples being measured may be biological samples.

A sample may be placed on a test substrate such as a test slide or other transparent substrate. The substrate may have patches of reactant-coated gold nanorods or other nanostructures that exhibit plasmonic resonances when illuminated by light.

An accessory may be removably coupled to a portable electronic device such as an iPhone. The accessory may have a lens that is aligned with the iPhone's rear-facing camera or other light sensor.

The accessory may also have a light source that emits light into an edge of the test slide. The light passes through the transparent test slide to the patches of reactant-coated nanorods or other nanostructures and scatters from the nanostructures in a perpendicular direction through the lens towards the camera.

The portable device can measure spectral shifts associated with reactions between viruses and other substances in samples and reactant on the nanostructures. These spectral shifts can be analyzed to help determine the composition of the samples (e.g., whether a sample contains a virus that binds with an antibody or other reactant). 

Apple's patent FIG. 1 below is a schematic diagram of an illustrative system for analyzing samples; FIG. 5 is a rear perspective view of an iPhone; FIG. 6 is a top view of an illustrative sample substrate formed from a transparent member such as a glass slide in.

Apple's patent FIG. 12 above is a cross-sectional side view of an illustrative system for testing samples; FIG. 13 is a top view of a portion of an accessory for providing edge illumination to a transparent substrate when testing samples

For full details, review granted patent 12019027.

Inventors

• Clarisse Mazuir: Special Projects Group: Lighting and Sensors Lead.
• Malcolm Northcott: Sensor systems engineer