Apple Inc.

Shapirten Laboratories LLC

Blake R Marshall

Reza Nasiri Mahalati

Liquan Tan

John Stephen Smith

Aidan N Zimmerman

Li-Quan Tan

Florence W Ow

Gianpaolo Lisi

Joel N Ruscher

Robert Scritzky

Qigen Ji

Nan Liu

Wesley William Zuber

Madhusudanan Keezhveedi Sampath

Henry N Tsao

Priyanka Bhandari

Robert Ubo Liu

Daniel Jacob Benjamin Bechstein

Mohit Narang

Yi Jiang

Indranil S Sen

Ryan P Brooks

Hao Zhu

Wing Kong Low

Kevin C Armendariz

Karan S Jain

Supratik Datta

Vipin Ayanoor-Vitikkate

Nandita Venugopal

Bing Jiang

Ashwin Kumar Asoka Kumar Shenoi

Izhar Bentov

MohammadAli Khorrami

Paul Xiaopeng Wang

Eric Steven Jol

John Raff

Alex Joseph Lehmann

Nahid Harjee

Elvis Mwenda Kibiti

Qiliang Xu

Brenton A Baugh

Ari Y Benbasat

Todd K Moyer

Pavan Gupta

Adam S Howell

Marco Soldano

Michael B Nussbaum

Santhana Krishnan Balaji

Teera Songatikamas

Victor Luzzato

Taylor Harrison Gilbert

Apexit Shah

Jonathan M Beard

Xiaofan Niu

Daniel J Bechstein

Wai Man Raymund Kwok

YiBo Liu

Jaime G Chavez Ruiz Garza

Alex C Yeung

Zhibin Wang

Wei-Hsuan Chen

Chen Zheng

Jason P Marini

Wang Chung Alston Cheung

Joyan Gratian Sanctis

Ullas Chandra Sekhar Pazhayaveetil

Jason Chueh-Ren Hu

Rexford J Garland

Nathaniel M Parnell

Ying Cao

Ramon Villar Ramirez

Alexander L Jackson

Sarah M Bolton

Siddharth Shekar

Jared A Brauner

Lindsay Diane Rego Corbet

Nitin Sitaraman

A modular electronic device system that can include a computing device in electronic communication with an input device. Various types of sensor contained in either or both of the computing device and input device are used to determine orientation and hinge angle between the computing device and input device. Input settings can be changed according to the data from the various sensors. The input device can also include an elongated tail that is configured to attach to the computing device. The elongated tail can allow multiple physical configurations for ease of use.

Keyboard accessory for electronic device

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for enabling a power efficient stylus for an electronic device are provided. Various components may be provided for providing electrostatic discharge protection of such a stylus.

Electrostatic discharge protection of a power efficient stylus for an electronic device

An electrostatic discharge (ESD) robust design for an input device such as a stylus is disclosed. The input device can include one or more components, such as one or more Schottky diodes, that can be damaged by ESD events. To reduce the likelihood of damage to sensitive components, the parasitic capacitance between sensitive conductive paths and reference ground paths of the input device that could otherwise provide electrostatic discharge paths can be reduced (arranging current limiting resistance at specific locations among sensitive components, creating physical separation between sensitive conductive paths and reference ground paths), shielding can be added to shield the sensitive electronics from ESD pulses, and high dielectric breakdown material can be added to prevent ESD pulse entry or exit of not otherwise protected circuit parts.

Electrostatic discharge robust design for input device

Touch-based input devices, such as a stylus, can receive tactile input from a user. The tactile input functions can be performed by a touch sensor, such as a capacitive sensing device. A touch sensor can be integrated into a stylus in a low profile form. Tactile input can be received at the user's natural grip location. Furthermore, the stylus can effectively distinguish between tactile inputs from a user and disregard sustained tactile inputs that are provided while the user simply holds the stylus at the user's natural grip location.

Touch-based input for stylus

A stylus input device can allow a user to interface with an external electronic device. The stylus can provide an additional or alternative input to the external electronic device in response to a user applying a compressive force to the device housing. The stylus can include multiple sensors to provide a signal in response to the compressive force applied to the stylus.

Stylus with compressive force sensor

An electronic device includes a housing coupled to a display window, a battery and a plurality of inductive charging transmit coils coupled to the battery. The plurality of inductive charging coils are positioned within the enclosure to generate an inductive charging region that extends through the display window and across at least a portion of an exterior of the display window. Sensing circuitry is configured to sense a position of a stylus at the display window and a processor is configured to selectively engage and disengage one or more of the plurality of inductive charging transmit coils based on the sensed position of the stylus. The stylus receives power when it is positioned within the inductive charging window.

Electronic device having an inductive charging system

An input device such as a stylus for providing input to a touch-sensitive surface with reduced sensitivity to leakage current variations over temperature is disclosed. A passive stylus may include one or more diodes in parallel with one or more bleed resistors. The non-linear load of the diode and resistor network can be operative to provide a stylus electric field in response to a stimulation signal from an electronic device that can be capacitively coupled to, and sensed by, the electronic device. The signal sensed by the electronic device can be a function of the total leakage current, which can vary greatly as a function of temperature and frequency. In order to improve performance, the diode and resistor network, including the bleed resistor(s) and diodes within that network, can be selected and/or designed to provide a reduced variation in the leakage current and more accurate stylus detection.

Reducing sensitivity to leakage variation for passive stylus

In some examples, a stylus can include a conductive shield. In some examples, the conductive shield can include a plurality of traces along an edge of a printed circuit board (PCB) including the stylus circuitry. In some examples, the conductive shield can include a shield can coupled to the PCB and disposed around the components of the stylus circuitry. In some examples, the conductive shield can include a hollow portion into which the stylus circuitry can be disposed and a solid portion that can act as a reference electrode. In some examples, the conductive shield can include a hollow sleeve disposed around the stylus circuitry. In some examples, the conductive sleeve can be attached to the PCB. In some examples, the conductive sleeve can be disposed between layers of a housing of the stylus. In some examples, the conductive sleeve can be integrated with the stylus housing.

Shield electrode for input device

A wireless power transmission system may include a wireless power transmitting device such as a tablet computer and a wireless power receiving device such as a computer stylus. A wireless power transmitting capacitor electrode may be formed in the tablet computer. A wireless power receiving capacitor electrode may be formed in the computer stylus. The transmitting capacitor electrode may be driven by a drive signal having a frequency of 900 MHz or greater to produce wireless power. The wireless power may be transmitted from the transmitting capacitor electrode to the receiving capacitor electrode on the stylus via near field capacitive coupling. The transmitting and receiving capacitor electrodes may each include conductive traces on dielectric substrates. The conductive traces may follow meandering paths to maximize the possible capacitive coupling efficiency between the capacitor electrodes and thus the end-to-end charging efficiency of the wireless power transmission system.

Capacitive wireless charging systems

Embodiments describe a receiving element that includes a ferromagnetic structure axially symmetrical around a central axis disposed along a length of the ferromagnetic structure. The ferromagnetic structure includes a groove region defining two end regions on opposing sides of the groove region, where the groove region has a smaller length than the two end regions. The receiving element also includes an inductor coil wound about the groove region of the ferromagnetic structure and in between the two end regions.

Attachment devices for inductive interconnection systems

Inductive interconnection system

Hybrid connectors that may transfer power and data with a variety of electronic devices having different types of connector interfaces, may consume a minimal amount of surface area, depth, and volume in an electronic device, and may be readily manufactured.

Hybrid connector

Input device power consumption can be reduced with a magnetic drive system. In some examples, the input device can include a transformer configured to generate a desired high output voltage from logic-level input pulses. In some examples, the distributed capacitance and associated resonance of the transformer can act as a low-pass filter, and can create a relatively clean output waveform from input logic signal waveforms. In some examples, the transformer can be an autotransformer. In some examples, to stabilize an amplitude of the output by sampling the output of the transformer and adjusting the input to the transformer based on the sampled output.

Touch sensor excitation using transformer

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Blake R Marshall