ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,261,001, issued on March 25, was assigned to Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (San Jose, Calif.).

"Detecting push button press of a passive rotary knob on a touch screen" was invented by Taras Kuzo (Lviv, Ukraine), Shoushuai Zhao (Pudong, China) and Viktor Kremin (Lviv, Ukraine).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A touch screen device is disclosed. The touch screen device includes a touch screen panel having a capacitive sense array, and a passive dial including first, second and third conductive parts. The first conductive part and the third conductive part are in proximity to a surface of the touch screen panel, and the second conductive part i...