On December 29, 2020, Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple Wins Patent for an Advanced Version of their Apple Watch 'Fall Detection' System that sends ECG data to Emergency Services." The Fall detection feature of Apple Watch is one of the more practical features that could apply to people of all ages but especially seniors. A couple of high-profile stories came to light in 2019 that illustrated the value of the Fall Detection feature. The first involved a car accident and another involving a biking accident. 

Today, the delayed patent applications that failed to be made public on January 7th were published today by the U.S. Patent Office and one of them happened to be continuation patent 20210005071 regarding the Apple Watch feature known as Fall Detection. You could review our December patent report linked to above should you require more background  information on this invention. Below are just two of  the many patent figures associated with this invention.

Apple's patent FIG. 1 below illustrates an example system #100 for determining whether a user has fallen and is in need of assistance. The system includes an Apple Watch (#102), a server computer system (#104) that communicates with a variety of devices (#106) and a network (#108); FIG. 9 is a diagram of an example decision tree for determining that either a user has fallen and may be in need of assistance, or a user has either not fallen or has fallen but is not in need of assistance.

To be clear, today's patent report is not about a new invention but rather a continuation of a previously granted patent. Apple's continuation patent is adding new patent claims that will further protect their original invention.

So, what has Apple Added to their Fall Detection Invention?

Today's continuation patent relates to the granted patent 10,629,048 issued in April 2020. New patent claims are being added to their granted patent. The original granted patent contained 104 patent claims that you could review here. Today's continuation patent contains 40 new claims.

Apple's original granted patent claims mainly focused on "motion" data and characteristics. In this latest continuation patent, Apple's new patent claims mainly zero in on gathering information about the user's age; gender; historical physical activity; vascular health; and oxygen uptake prior to a fall. Below are just a few of the new claims: 

Patent Claim #2: The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more characteristics of the user comprise: an age of the user.

#3. The method of claim 2, wherein the likelihood increases with an increase in the age of the user.

#4. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more characteristics of the user comprise: a gender of the user.

#6. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more characteristics of the user comprise: a historical physical activity level of the user.

#7. The method of claim 6, wherein the likelihood increases with a decrease in the historical physical activity level of the user.

#8. The method of claim 7, wherein the historical physical activity level is indicative of a frequency of movement by the user prior to the impact.

#10. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more characteristics of the user comprise: a vascular health of the user.

#11. The method of claim 10, wherein the likelihood increases with a decrease in the vascular health of the user.

#12. The method of claim 10, wherein the vascular health of the user is determined based on a maximal oxygen uptake (VO.sub.2 max) of the user.

#13. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more characteristics of the user comprise: a historical walking speed of the user.

To learn more about the full 40 patent claims, review Apple's patent application 20210005071 here.