ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,276,943, issued on April 15, was assigned to Apple Inc. (Cupertino, Calif.).
"Conductive cap for watch crown" was invented by Colin M. Ely (Sunnyvale, Calif.), Sameer Pandya (Sunnyvale, Calif.) and Steven C. Roach (San Francisco).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An electronic device, such as a watch, has a crown assembly having a shaft and a user-rotatable crown. The user-rotatable crown may include a conductive cap that is mechanically and electrically coupled to the shaft and functions as an electrode. The conductive cap may be coupled to the shaft using solder or another conductive attachment mechanism. The shaft may electrically couple t...