The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 76 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we focus on a patent that potentially covers many sports related inventions like an advanced heart rate monitor and ways to interact with sports on a future Apple TV. Apple is focusing more and more on health via the Apple Watch today and it's likely to extend to new apps and services in the future.

Granted Patent: Personal Items Network

Apple's newly granted patent covers their invention relating to sensing systems monitoring applications in sports, shipping, training, medicine, fitness, wellness and industrial production. The invention specifically relates to sensing and reporting events associated with movement, environmental factors such as temperature, health functions, fitness effects, and changing conditions.

Apple's patent FIG. 8 illustrates application of a plurality of MMDs (Movement Monitoring Device and/or Event Monitor Device), of the invention, to athletes to facilitate training and/or to provide excitement in broadcast media; FIG. 8A illustrates real time data acquisition, reconstruction and display for data wirelessly transmitted from the MMDs of FIG. 8.

When Apple introduced Nike + iPod, PhatRat Technology sued Apple. It ended up that Apple acquired a number of PhatRat patents with today's granted patent being one of them. Apple expanded their focus on sports with Apple Watch and heart rate monitors is an area of great interest to Apple.

Apple TV now has a number of sporting apps supporting it like the CBS full Episodes and Live TV app that was updated on April 13, 2017. With 5G networks arriving sometime around 2020, being able to provide live feedback to sporting events on Apple TV will likely be one of the killer apps in the works. Today's granted patent covers this eventuality or at least possibility.

For more details on this invention, check out our 2009 patent application report titled "Apple TV to Take Sporting Events to a Whole New Level." Apple's granted patent 9,643,091 was published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Patently Apple presents only a brief summary of granted patents with associated graphics for journalistic news purposes as each Granted Patent is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any Granted Patent should be read in its entirety for full details. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments.