Apple Continues Work on Future Sports Oriented AirPods with Biometrics & Noise Cancellation Features
Apple announces new Research Facilities for China as Tim Cook Prepares to Address Economic Forum in Beijing

Apple rewrites their 2011 Facial Recognition Patent Claims just as Rumors Point to this Feature coming to iPhone 8

1AF X99 FACIAL RECOGNITION

 

In 2012 Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple Invents Facial Recognition Locking & Unlocking System." The report covered all of the major points including locking and locking an iDevice with facial recognition; using advanced sensors; utilizing movement patterns; a sensor that understands unintended movement; using a grip detector; a unique child lock and more.

 

The heart of Apple's 2012 patent filing doesn't change one iota. What has changed is all of its patent claims. Considering that it's been six years since the original patent application was filed, changing the patent claims could be signaling a possible renewed interest in using this technology in the future.

 

In the last year Apple has picked up two facial recognition companies, Emotient and RealFace. So to say that Apple has an interest in this technology would be an understatement. How they plan to implement the technology is still the great unknown – though rumors have suggested that Apple may introduce 3D facial recognition as a secondary ID methodology to work in conjunction with its current Touch ID. Perhaps its designed to foil security teams like Cellebrite.

 

It should also be noted that Samsung is reportedly to introduce facial recognition for their upcoming Galaxy S8.

 

All New Patent Claims

 

Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a continuation patent application from Apple wherein they've cancelled all of the original twenty-three patent claims and replaced them with 27 new claims, starting at #24 noted further below.

 

For those who are new to patents, it's important to know why the patent claims, and in this case, the new patent claims listed below are really important.

 

In a patent or patent application, the claims define, in technical terms, the extent, i.e. the scope, of the protection conferred by a patent, or the protection sought in a patent application. In other words, the purpose of the claims is to define which subject-matter is protected by the patent (or sought to be protected by the patent application).

 

This is termed as the "notice function" of a patent claim—to warn others of what they must not do if they are to avoid infringement liability. The claims are of the utmost importance both during prosecution and litigation alike.

 

Apple's new Patent Claims

 

Being that this is a continuation patent with the first 23 claims having been cancelled, the new claims below begin at number 24:

 

24. A non-transitory machine readable medium including instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations to lock a mobile device having a camera, the operations comprising: while the mobile device is unlocked and in response to detecting that the mobile device has been motionless for a period of time, capturing one or more images using the camera wherein detecting that the mobile device has been motionless includes detecting movement or orientation of the mobile device using a motion sensor; analyzing the images to determine whether a face appears in the one or more images; and locking the mobile device in response to determining that the face does not appear in the one or more images.

 

25. The medium of claim 24, wherein capturing the one or more images comprises capturing one or more images in response to detecting that the mobile device is idle.

 

26. The medium of claim 24, wherein a monitoring of a motion state of the mobile device to detect whether the mobile device is motionless occurs prior to capturing the one or more images.

 

27. The medium of claim 24, wherein the motion sensor includes a tilt sensor or an infrared (IR) sensor.

 

28. The medium of claim 24, wherein detecting that the mobile device has been motionless includes filtering sensor data to remove spurious signals.

 

29. The medium of claim 28, wherein the spurious signals are filtered in response to a signal from an ambient light sensor.

 

30. The medium of claim 24, wherein determining that the face does not appear in the one or more images comprises: determining that the lace does not appear in at least one of the one or more images; capturing one or more additional images for a predetermined period; and locking the mobile device in response to determining that the face does not appear in the one or more additional images.

 

31. The medium of claim 30, wherein the predetermined period is configurable via a graphical interface of the mobile device.

 

32. The medium of claim 24, wherein locking the mobile device comprises disabling at least a portion of a graphical interface of the mobile device and wherein a display of the mobile device indicates where a face must appear in an image.

 

33. The medium of claim 32, wherein locking the mobile device comprises disabling at least a portion of applications and functions of the mobile device.

 

34. The medium of claim 33, wherein the portion of the graphical interface, functions or applications of the mobile device that are disabled by the locking is configurable.

 

35. A mobile device, comprising: one or more processors; a camera coupled to the one or more processors; a motion sensor to detect orientation or movement of the mobile device; and a non-transitory machine readable medium including instructions to cause the one or more processors to: capture one or more images using the camera while the device is unlocked and in response to a detection that the mobile device has been motionless for a period of time, wherein the detection that the mobile device has been motionless includes detection of movement or orientation of the mobile device via the motion sensor; analyze the images to determine whether a face appears in the one or more images; and lock the mobile device in response to a determination that the face does not appear in the one or more images.

 

36. The mobile device as in claim 35, wherein to capture the one or more images includes to capture one or more images in response to a detection that the mobile device is idle.

 

37. The mobile device as in claim 35, wherein the motion sensor monitors a motion state of the mobile device to detect whether the device is motionless prior to capturing the one or more images.

 

38. The mobile device as in claim 35, wherein the motion sensor includes a tilt sensor or an infrared (IR) sensor.

 

39. The mobile device as in claim 35, wherein to detect that the mobile device has been motionless includes to filter sensor data to remove spurious signals.

 

40. The mobile device as in claim 39, wherein the spurious signals are to be filtered in response to a signal from an ambient light sensor.

 

41. The mobile device as in claim 35, wherein to determine that the face does not appear in the one or more images includes to: determine that the face does not appear in at least one of the one or more images; capture one or more additional images for a predetermined period; and lock the mobile device in response to a determination that the face does not appear in the one or more additional images.

 

42. The mobile device as in claim 35, wherein the predetermined period is configurable via a graphical interface of the mobile device.

 

43. The mobile device as in claim 35, wherein locking the mobile device includes to disable at least a portion of a graphical interface of the mobile device and disable at least a portion of applications and functions of the mobile device and wherein a display of the mobile device indicates where the face must appear in an image.

 

44. A system to lock a mobile device having a camera, the system comprising: a non-transitory machine-readable storage device; and one or more processors coupled to the non-transitory machine-readable storage device, the one or more processors to execute instructions stored in the storage device to perform operations while the mobile device is unlocked, the operations including: in response to detecting that the mobile device has been motionless for a period of time, capturing one or more images using the camera, wherein detecting that the device has been motionless includes detecting movement or orientation of the device using a motion sensor; analyzing the images to determine whether a face appears in the one or more images; and locking the mobile device in response to determining that the face does not appear in the one or more images.

 

45. The system as in claim 44, wherein capturing the one or more images is in response to detecting that the mobile device is idle.

 

46. The system as in claim 44, wherein monitoring of a motion state of the mobile device to detect whether the device is motionless occurs prior to capturing the one or more images.

 

47. The system as in claim 44, wherein the motion sensor includes a tilt sensor or an infrared (IR) sensor.

 

48. The system as in claim 44, wherein detecting that the mobile device has been motionless includes filtering sensor data to remove spurious signals in response to a signal from an ambient light sensor.

 

49. The system as in claim 44, wherein determining that the face does not appear in the one or more images comprises: determining that the face does not appear in at least one of the one or more images; capturing one or more additional images for a predetermined period; and locking the mobile device in response to determining that the face does not appear in the one or more additional images.

 

50. The system as in claim 44, wherein locking the mobile device comprises disabling at least a portion of a graphical interface of the mobile device and disabling at least a portion of applications and functions of the mobile device and wherein a display of the mobile device indicates where a face must appear in an image.

 

2AX 99 FACIAL RECOGNITION CONTINUATION PATENT

Apple's continuation patent application 20170076077 was filed back in Q3 2016. The original patent was filed in 2011. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.

 

Other Facial Recognition Patent reports on record include the following:

 

Apple Reveals Advances in Facial Recognition Software

Apple Advances Facial and Feature Recognition Techniques

Apple Envisions Face & Presence Detection Security for iOS Devices

 

14 Notice BarPatently Apple presents a detailed summary of patent applications with associated graphics for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent application should be read in its entirety for full and accurate details. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus.

 

 

 

 

Comments

The comments to this entry are closed.