Apple has been granted three patents relating to the iPhone and iPod touch by the US Patent & Trademark Office.
Patent number 7928965 is for a touch screen RFID tag reader. The efficient incorporation of RFID circuitry within touch sensor panel circuitry is disclosed. The RFID antenna can be placed in the touch sensor panel, such that the touch sensor panel can now additionally function as an RFID transponder. No separate space-consuming RFID antenna is necessary.
Loops (single or multiple) forming the loop antenna of the RFID circuit (for either reader or tag applications) can be formed from metal on the same layer as metal traces formed in the borders of a substrate. Forming loops from metal on the same layer as the metal traces are advantageous in that the loops can be formed during the same processing step as the metal traces, without requiring a separate metal layer. The inventors are Michael Nathaniel Rosenblatt and Steve Porter Hotelling.
Patent D63639 is for an electronic device with a graphical user interface (the iPhone 4). The inventors are Jody Akana, Bartley K. Andre, Freddy Anzures, Jeremy Batalliou, Imran Chaudhri, Daniel J. Coster, Daniele De Iulliis, Evans Hankey, Richard P. Howarth, Jonathan P. Ive, Steve Jobs, Duncan Robert Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Peter Russell-clarke, Christopher Stringer, Eugene Antony Whang and Rico Zorkendorfer.
Patent D636390 is a design patent for an electronic device (the iPod touch). The inventors are Bartley K. Andre, Daniel J. Coster, Daniele De Iulliis, Jonathan P. Ive, Steve Jobs, Duncan Robert Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Peter Russell-clarke, Christopher Stringer, Eugene Antony Whang and Rico Zorkendorfer.