Apple Inc.

Maxtor Corporation

Shin John Choi

Brett W Degner

Steven Porter Hotelling

John Stephen Smith

Martin Paul Grunthaner

Sinan Filiz

Charley T Ogata

Christopher J Butler

Brian Quentin Huppi

James E Pedder

Dhaval Chandrakant Patel

Steven James Martisauskas

Christian M Sauer

Michael Benjamin Wittenberg

Dale R Setlak

Benjamin B Lyon

Steve Porter Hotelling

Arthur M Lin

Kenneth Lawrence Staton

Rodney B Ngai

Brian Shadle

Ehsan Farkhondeh

Peter Hahn

Brett William Degner

A device configured to sense a touch on a surface of the device. The device includes a cover and a force-sensing structure disposed below the cover. The force-sensing structure may be positioned below a display and used in combination with other force-sensing elements to estimate the force of a touch on the cover of a device.

Force determination employing sheet sensor

An object can depress an input device, such as, for example, a function button in an electronic device. A resistive element having a mechanically resistive force can be disposed to resist the depression or movement of the input device. One or more electrodes can be disposed to provide a measure of capacitance based on the depression of the input device. A shield can be disposed to reduce the parasitic capacitance between the one or more electrodes and the object. The electronic device can include a fingerprint sensor operably connected to at least one of the one or more electrodes.

Force-sensitive fingerprint sensing input

An optical force sensor that may compensate for environmental effects, including, for example, variations in temperature of the device or the surroundings. In some examples, two force-sensitive layers are separated by a compliant layer. The relative electrical response of the two force-sensitive layers may be used to compute an estimate of the force of a touch that reduces the effect of variations in temperature. In some examples, piezoelectric films having anisotropic strain properties are used to reduce the effects of temperature.

Temperature compensating sensor having a compliant layer separating independent force sensing substrates and sense circuitry to obtain a relative measure between the force sensing substrates

An optical force sensor, which may be used as input to an electronic device. The optical force sensor may be configured to compensate for variations in temperature using two or more force-sensitive components that are formed from materials having different temperature- and strain-dependent responses.

Temperature compensating force sensor

Force determination employing sheet sensor and capacitive array

An optically transparent force sensor that may compensate for environmental effects, including, for example, variations in temperature of the device or the surroundings. In some examples, two force-sensitive layers are separated by a compliant layer. The relative electrical response of the two force-sensitive layers may be used to compute an estimate of the force of a touch that reduces the effect of variations in temperature. In some examples, piezoelectric films having anisotropic strain properties are used to reduce the effects of temperature.

Temperature compensating transparent force sensor having a compliant layer

An optically transparent force sensor, which may be used as input to an electronic device. The optically transparent force sensor may be configured to compensate for variations in temperature using two or more force-sensitive components that are formed from materials having different temperature- and strain-dependent responses.

Temperature compensating transparent force sensor

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for transmitting data using invisible light via a display assembly of an electronic device are provided. This may enable more data to be transmitted simultaneously via a single display assembly of a limited size. For example, a single display assembly may simultaneously transmit a first type of data using visible light that may be comprehensible to a user (e.g., textual information that may be legible to a human) as well as a second type of data using invisible light that may be machine-readable (e.g., a barcode that may be detected by a scanner device but that may not be seen by a human).

Invisible light transmission via a display assembly

Capacitive multi-touch sensor panels in which both row and column traces may be formed on a single conducting surface are disclosed. These stack-ups may be made thinner and more flexible allowing them to be particularly well-suited for curved or other non-flat touch sensor panels, such as those that might be present on a mouse or other device designed to be grasped by a user's hand. Curved sensor panel arrays that may be formed from flat substrates are also disclosed. These sensor panel configurations may include channels around the periphery of the array. These channels allow the flat array to lie flat when applied to a curved surface, such as the inside of the curved surface. The pattern of the touch sensor elements may be adjusted across the array to avoid the channels.

Multi-touch sensor patterns and stack-ups

A mounting assembly for securing a disk drive to a frame of a computer is provided herein. The mounting assembly includes three rigid mounts and a single flexible mount. Each rigid mount rigidly secures the drive housing to the frame and prevents degradation of performance of the disk drive. The flexible mount diminishes the level of vibration transferred from the frame to drive housing. Further, the flexible mount facilitates flexing of the drive housing intermediate the flexible mount and the rigid mounts. This reduces the effects of a shock pulse to the disk drive and inhibits head slap between a transducer head and a storage disk.

Mounting assembly for a disk drive

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Shin John Choi