This has turned out to be a very active week regarding news and patents regarding future reverse charging. It began with a rumor report from a Mark Gurman (Bloomberg) report that we covered on Monday that Apple was still actively working on reverse charging and possibly their AirPower mat. Then on Tuesday Apple was granted a patent for reverse wireless charging. Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a new patent application from Apple that yes, relates to wireless reverse charging and more.

In Apple's new patent application titled "Communication Between Devices in a Wireless Charging System," Apple describes a wireless power system may include one or more wireless power transmitting devices, one or more wireless power receiving devices, and one or more wireless power transmitting and receiving devices.

The wireless power transmitting device may include a coil and wireless power transmitting circuitry coupled to the coil. The wireless power transmitting circuitry may be configured to transmit wireless power signals with the coil. The wireless power receiving device may include a coil that is configured to receive wireless power signals from the wireless power transmitting device and rectifier circuitry that is configured to convert the wireless power signals to direct current power. The wireless power transmitting and receiving device may include at least one coil and both wireless power transmitting circuitry and wireless power receiving circuitry.

The devices in the wireless power system may exchange packets in order to transfer various types of data. Authentication data, firmware data, command data, configuration data, and/or power data may be transmitted between the devices in the wireless power system. The data may be transmitted using in-band communication (e.g., amplitude-shift keying modulation or frequency-shift keying modulation).

The devices may use locally assigned addresses to communicate with any other device in the wireless power system. Even if a first device is not inductively coupled to a second device, the locally assigned addresses may identify an inductive coupling path from the first device to the second device that includes at least one intervening device.

The first device may therefore communicate with the second device using in-band communication packets that are relayed by at least one intervening device. Each device in the wireless power system may maintain a list of all other devices in the network. Each other device in the network may be assigned a respective address that is indicative of the inductive coupling path to that device.

Apple's patent FIG. 1 below is a schematic diagram of an illustrative wireless power system.

Apple's patent FIG. 5 below is a flowchart showing illustrative operations involved in a network discovery process for a wireless power system.

To review Apple's deeply detailed patent application 20210376628, click here.

Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.