The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 59 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we briefly cover two patents. The first covers next-gen Apple Watch concepts that touch on 2-layer displays that could hide a camera and flash, conserve power and more. The second patent covers a possible future carbon fiber keyboard for MacBooks and more. Apple was also granted design patents for the iPhone 11 Pro backplate and a Beats branded earphone case. 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 today.

Apple Watch with 2-Stage Displays & Camera

Apple has been granted patent 10,866,615 titled " Electronic devices with two-stage displays." Apple's granted patent describes a possible next-gen Apple Watch that could conceal a camera and flash, accept Apple Pencil input and provide for a conserve power mode.

As always, sensors play an important role in Apple Watch and this future Apple Watch could include microphones, force sensors, touch sensors, sensors that gather both touch and force (e.g., combined touch and force sensors formed by overlapping touch and force sensor components and/or components that measure both touch and force), temperature sensors, air pressure sensors, moisture sensors, ambient light sensors and other light-based sensors, three-dimensional gesture sensors, proximity sensors, gaze detection (eye tracking) sensors, infrared cameras and other infrared sensors, optical sensors such as visible light sensors, magnetic sensors, and sensors for measuring the orientation, movement and more.

Apple's patent FIG. 1 below is a schematic diagram of a possible future Apple Watch that could hide a camera and flash behind it's display; FIG. 18 is a perspective view of an illustrative watch with illustrative transparent window configurations.

To conserve power in this future Apple Watch, Apple notes that it may be desirable to form a display layer using a display technology that consumes less power than a secondary display layer.

In general, any suitable technology may be used in forming layer the first display layer such as electrochromic devices, suspended particles devices, liquid crystal light modulators (e.g., light-modulators based on liquid crystal layer sandwiched between polarizers), guest-host liquid crystal light modulators (e.g., light modulators in which guest dyes are incorporated into host liquid crystal material so that the guest-host liquid crystal light modulator may exhibit adjustable light transmission and adjustable color such as light transmission that varies from clear to dark and/or from clear to a particular non-neutral color, as determined by the color of the guest dye, polymer dispersed liquid crystal light modulators, guest-hose polymer dispersed liquid crystal light modulators, electrophoretic light modulators (sometimes referred to as e-ink devices), and/or other adjustable light modulator layers.

For more on this, review Apple's granted patent here.

Carbon Fiber MacBook Keyboard

In March 2019 Patently Apple posted an IP report titled "Apple Invents a Specialized Carbon Fiber Keyboard for MacBooks that could eliminate the Butterfly Hinge Problem. Today Apple was granted that patent.

Apple presents their main solution in patent figure 14A as presented below and points to #1407 a new "spring member" that could replace other types of hinges (butterfly, scissor) if so desired.

(Click on image to Enlarge)

You could review our original patent application report with more images here or Apple's granted patent here.

A Couple of Apple Design Patents Granted Today

The Remaining Patents Granted to Apple Today