Apple Wins Patent for Multiple Device Reverse Wireless Charging
Years before there was a rumor about Apple adopting reverse wireless charging from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo there was Apple's actual intellectual property filed with the U.S. Patent Office. Patently Apple extensively covered Apple's patent on reverse wireless charging way back in March 2016. Last year Patently Apple covered Huawei introducing reverse wireless charging on their Mate 20 Pro smartphone.
Apple's granted patent covers an electronic device that includes an inductive coil, which may be configured to be in electrical communication with an external inductive coil of an external electronic device. In some cases, the inductive coils are wirelessly and inductively coupled. The wirelessly coupled inductive coils may act as transmitting coils and/or receiving coils capable of transmitting power between the two electronic devices. In some cases, the transmission of power may increase a charge of a battery of a first electronic device that is receiving the power, while simultaneously decreasing the charge of a battery of a second electronic device that is transmitting the power. Using the inductive coils, the battery of a first electronic device may be charged using the second external electronic device. As such, only a single power cord (connected to the second external electronic device) or no power cords may be needed to charge multiple devices that include inductive coils that are wirelessly coupled across the devices.
Apple's patent FIG. 1 noted below shows an illustrative front view of one example of an electronic device #100 (noted as an iPhone) including at least one inductive coil #112. The device could also be a MacBook, iMac, iPad, gaming device, a display, a digital music player, a wearable computing device or display, a health monitoring device, and so on.
Apples' patent FIG. 2 noted above shows an illustrative view of the first electronic device of FIG. 1 with a display removed; FIG. 3 shows an illustrative back view of the first electronic device of FIG. 1.
Apple's patent FIGS. 7A and 17 below illustrate how multiple inductive charging coils can be placed under the frame of a MacBook that could accommodate charging of multiple devices at one time.
Apple's patent FIGS. 18 and 20 show how the lid or cover of a MacBook could be laced with inductive charging coils that could act as a charging plate and charge individual devices over a single coil or have sets of devices (iPad mini, iPhone and Apple Watch) being charged over multiple coils.
You could review our original patent application report with more graphics and details here. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted Apple this patent today.
Apple's Listed Inventors
Eric Jol: Director, Interconnect, Product Design
Chris Graham: Product Design Manager
Darshan Kasar: Product Design Engineer
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