Patents by Inventor Andrew William Shorten

Andrew William Shorten has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20220011920
    Abstract: Techniques for rejecting apparent (but false) touches caused by objects such as water droplets located in areas with parasitic capacitive paths to ground are disclosed. To minimize these false touches, one or more guard conductors can be located in proximity to the housing and driven with a stimulation signal to shield objects from being capacitively coupled to ground through the housing. In some examples images of touch can be obtained from a non-bootstrapped or bootstrapped scan and also an extended bootstrapped scan wherein the guard conductor is driven with a stimulation signal that has the same characteristics as the stimulation signal being applied to the sensed touch nodes. In some examples, the results of the extended bootstrapped scan can be subtracted from the non-bootstrapped or bootstrapped scan to identify and reject apparent touches resulting from capacitive coupling to ground.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 25, 2021
    Publication date: January 13, 2022
    Inventors: Andrew William SHORTEN, Sai ZHANG, Andreas Johannes KOEBERL, Eric S. WINOKUR, Liqun YANG, Sabino Joseph PIETRANGELO, II, Branislav JOVANOVIC, Ari Y. BENBASAT
  • Patent number: 11157109
    Abstract: Techniques for rejecting apparent (but false) touches caused by objects such as water droplets located in areas with parasitic capacitive paths to ground are disclosed. To minimize these false touches, one or more guard conductors can be located in proximity to the housing and driven with a stimulation signal to shield objects from being capacitively coupled to ground through the housing. In some examples images of touch can be obtained from a non-bootstrapped or bootstrapped scan and also an extended bootstrapped scan wherein the guard conductor is driven with a stimulation signal that has the same characteristics as the stimulation signal being applied to the sensed touch nodes. In some examples, the results of the extended bootstrapped scan can be subtracted from the non-bootstrapped or bootstrapped scan to identify and reject apparent touches resulting from capacitive coupling to ground.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 10, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 26, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Andrew William Shorten, Sai Zhang, Andreas Johannes Koeberl, Eric S. Winokur, Liqun Yang, Sabino Joseph Pietrangelo, II, Branislav Jovanovic, Ari Y. Benbasat