ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 13 -- United States Patent no. 12,523,552, issued on Jan. 13, was assigned to Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Redmond, Wash.).
"Touchpad force calculation" was invented by Federico Zannier (Seattle), Lalit Anil Palve (Seattle) and Rhishikesh Ashok Sathe (Bothell, Wash.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Methods for estimating a force F exerted on a touchpad are disclosed. In one example, a force sensing touchpad comprises a printed circuit board (PCB) comprising four PCB electrodes and a spring spaced from the PCB and comprising four spring electrodes. Changes in capacitance at two of the PCB electrodes are determined and used to calculate a first local gradient between ...