Apple got quite a few patents this week, from the US Patent and Trademark Office, that included some inventions having to with the Home Button, Liquid Metal technologies and iDevice shock protection. In total 39 patents were given.
The new patent for the Home button covers the technical side of the famous button. It covers a switch assembly for an electronic device, that includes a circular button, bracket offset and a flexible printed circuit board, that’s fixed on the vertical wall. The cylindrical switch mechanisms is able to tell from good presses and false presses, by using a special switch assembly design.
The shock protection patent involves viscoelastic material, that protects device components from impacts by surrounding them and absorbing shock. Finally, Apple was granted a new liquid metal patent, that has to do with a “cold chamber die casting of amorphous alloys using cold crucible induction melting techniques”. The idea is to cast an alloy using a special mechanism and an induction heating structure.
Seeing how the Home button is rumored to die in a few years, the first patent doesn’t exactly impress.
via patentlyapple
