US Patent Issued to Apple on Jan. 13 for "Using a structural internal element as a capacitive element to sense proximity" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 13 -- United States Patent no. 12,524,118, issued on Jan. 13, was assigned to Apple Inc. (Cupertino, Calif.).

"Using a structural internal element as a capacitive element to sense proximity" was invented by Tyler S. Atura Bushnell (San Francisco), Andreas J. Koeberl (San Francisco), Eric S. Winokur (San Francisco), Matthew J. Schwendeman (San Francisco) and Timothy M. Johnson (San Jose, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An electronic device can include a housing, a back cover, a structural member, and a sensing circuit. The housing can at least partially define an internal volume of the electronic device and the back cover can define at least a portion of the interna...