Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) patent activity today gave an additional confirmation of the technology giant’s continued interest in both fitness tracking products and new ways to implement touch-based control systems. Apple was granted a patent for health and fitness tracking earphones and earbuds by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), completing a patent filing originally made six years ago in 2008. The USPTO also granted an important patent for touch-based controls to be placed in a MacBook’s bezel.
The first of these patents awards, and probably the one most intimately tied to Apple’s (AAPL) rumored release of the iWatch and other health related products, is for fitness tracking earphones. Patent number 8,655,004 is entitled “Sports Monitoring System for Headphones, Earbuds, and/or Headsets,” and describes a miniaturized monitoring system which would measure such factors as “user activity,” heart rate, temperature, and perspiration.
The patent indicates that the system would also include gesture controls which would send commands to a second device based on the user’s head movements. Though the second device is not specified, this feature could potentially be linked to iWatch functionality if the “Sports Monitoring System” is ever produced in reality. The patent’s assignee is, naturally, Apple Inc. (AAPL). The inventors of record are Christopher Prest and Quin C. Hoellwarth. Mr. Prest is a Manager of Product Design at Apple, educated at the University of Cambridge.
The other patent granted today, U.S. Patent No. 8,654,524, involves touch controls for a notebook computer which could be used on future iterations of the MacBook. This patent envisions placing touch sensors in the bezel around the screen and the notebook’s chassis itself, moving away from keyboard technology and towards expanded touch input methodology. The patent filing was carried out in August 2009, with four inventors, including Aleksandar Pance, Nicholas King, Duncan Kerr, and Brett Bilbrey.
Both of these patents tie in closely to Apple Inc. (AAPL) products that have been rumored to be nearing release, including solar-powered MacBooks and the much-bruited iWatch. The technology needed for each project is much more realistically available today than at the time the patents were filed, with continuing miniaturization of control and input systems being particularly important to the manufacture of any actual fitness-monitoring earbuds that that Cupertino firm might decide to produce now that their concepts are legally shielded.
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