US Patent Issued to Apple on Oct. 7 for "Capacitive touch panel for sensing mechanical inputs to a device" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 8 -- United States Patent no. 12,436,629, issued on Oct. 7, was assigned to Apple Inc. (Cupertino, Calif.).

"Capacitive touch panel for sensing mechanical inputs to a device" was invented by Anna-Katrina Shedletsky (Mountain View, Calif.), Christopher Werner (San Jose, Calif.), Colin M. Ely (Sunnyvale, Calif.) and Fletcher R. Rothkopf (Los Altos, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A device including a mechanical input and a touch-sensitive surface for detecting one or more touch inputs and an input from the mechanical input. The touch-sensitive surface can include a first portion for detecting at least the touch inputs, and a second portion for detecting at least the ...