Patents by Inventor William W Sprague

William W Sprague 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: 20240103301
    Abstract: A head-mounted display may include a display system and an optical system in a housing. The display system may have displays that produce images. Positioners may be used to move the displays relative to the eye positions of a user's eyes. An adjustable optical system may include tunable lenses such as tunable cylindrical liquid crystal lenses. The displays may be viewed through the lenses when the user's eyes are at the eye positions. A sensor may be incorporated into the head-mounted display to measure refractive errors in the user's eyes. The sensor may include waveguides and volume holograms, and a camera for gathering light that has reflected from the retinas of the user's eyes. Viewing comfort may be enhanced by adjusting display positions relative to the eye positions and/or by adjusting lens settings based on the content being presented on the display and/or measured refractive errors.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 6, 2023
    Publication date: March 28, 2024
    Inventors: Victoria C. Chan, Christina G. Gambacorta, Graham B. Myhre, Hyungryul Choi, Nan Zhu, Phil M. Hobson, William W. Sprague, Edward A. Valko, Qiong Huang, Branko Petljanski, Paul V. Johnson, Brandon E. Clarke, Elijah H. Kleeman
  • Publication number: 20240094548
    Abstract: A head-mounted device may include optical assemblies for presenting images to a user. Motors may be used to adjust the spacing between the optical assemblies to accommodate different interpupillary distances. Gaze trackers may be used to make interpupillary distance measurements and eye relief measurements. Adjustments to the positions of the optical assemblies may be made by the motors based on the interpupillary distance measurements and eye relief measurements.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 12, 2023
    Publication date: March 21, 2024
    Inventors: Shannon Pomeroy, Kristina A. Babiarz, Jia Tao, Aidan N. Zimmerman, Matin Seadat Beheshti, Blake N. Trekell, William W. Sprague, Anna V. Mirabella
  • Patent number: 11927757
    Abstract: An electronic device may have a display panel with an array of display pixels. Light from the display panel may be focused by a lens assembly towards a viewer. The presence of the lens assembly may cause geometric distortion for a viewer viewing images on the display through the lens assembly. To mitigate geometric distortion, geometric distortion compensation may be performed in the electronic device. The electronic device may include both a fixed lens element and a removable lens element in the lens assembly. The removable lens element may be changed, allowing the distortion function associated with the lens assembly to change over time. To dynamically compensate for geometric distortion caused by a lens assembly with a removable lens, ray tracing may be used to determine the geometric distortion caused by the lens assembly depending upon the particular removable lens that is present in the lens assembly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 17, 2022
    Date of Patent: March 12, 2024
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Milad Akhlaghi Bouzan, William W Sprague, Anup Rathi, Duncan A McRoberts, Tahereh Majdi
  • Patent number: 11912545
    Abstract: A wireless hoist system including a first hoist device having a first motor and a first wireless transceiver and a second hoist device having a second motor and a second wireless transceiver. The wireless hoist system includes a controller in wireless communication with the first wireless transceiver and the second wireless. The controller is configured to receive a user input and determine a first operation parameter and a second operation parameter based on the user input. The controller is also configured to provide, wirelessly, a first control signal indicative of the first operation parameter to the first hoist device and provide, wirelessly, a second control signal indicative of the second operation parameter to the second hoist device. The first hoist device operates based on the first control signal and the second hoist device operates based on the second control signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 26, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 27, 2024
    Assignee: Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation
    Inventors: Matthew Post, Gareth Mueckl, Matthew N. Thurin, Joshua D. Widder, Timothy J. Bartlett, Patrick D. Gallagher, Jarrod P. Kotes, Karly M. Schober, Kenneth W. Wolf, Terry L. Timmons, Mallory L. Marksteiner, Jonathan L. Lambert, Ryan A. Spiering, Jeremy R. Ebner, Benjamin A. Smith, James Wekwert, Brandon L. Yahr, Troy C. Thorson, Connor P. Sprague, John E. Koller, Evan M. Glanzer, John S. Scott, William F. Chapman, III, Timothy R. Obermann
  • Patent number: 11874530
    Abstract: A head-mounted display may include a display system and an optical system in a housing. The display system may have displays that produce images. Positioners may be used to move the displays relative to the eye positions of a user's eyes. An adjustable optical system may include tunable lenses such as tunable cylindrical liquid crystal lenses. The displays may be viewed through the lenses when the user's eyes are at the eye positions. A sensor may be incorporated into the head-mounted display to measure refractive errors in the user's eyes. The sensor may include waveguides and volume holograms, and a camera for gathering light that has reflected from the retinas of the user's eyes. Viewing comfort may be enhanced by adjusting display positions relative to the eye positions and/or by adjusting lens settings based on the content being presented on the display and/or measured refractive errors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 3, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 16, 2024
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Victoria C. Chan, Christina G. Gambacorta, Graham B. Myhre, Hyungryul Choi, Nan Zhu, Phil M. Hobson, William W. Sprague, Edward A. Valko, Qiong Huang, Branko Petljanski, Paul V. Johnson, Brandon E. Clarke, Elijah H. Kleeman
  • Publication number: 20230358920
    Abstract: A head-mounted device may have optical modules that present images to a user's left and right eyes. Each optical module may have a lens support structure that supports a display and a fixed lens. Vision correction lenses may be removably coupled to the fixed lenses to help customize the head-mounted device to the vision of a particular user. A user may view images on the displays through the removable and fixed lenses from eye boxes. The optical modules may include infrared light sources that supply infrared light to the eye boxes and infrared light sensors such as infrared cameras for gaze tracking and authentication. The lenses may have optical surfaces covered with coating that enhance optical performance and may have edge surfaces that are provided with structures to help reduce stray light reflections. The lenses may be configured to pass visible and infrared light.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 25, 2023
    Publication date: November 9, 2023
    Inventors: Nikhil D. Kalyankar, Avery P. Yuen, Elson Y. Liu, James R. Wilson, Ove Lyngnes, Peter J. Guest, Keenan Molner, Ryan Springer, William W. Sprague, Brandon E. Clarke, Wei-Liang Hsu, Mehmet Mutlu, Victoria C. Chan
  • Patent number: 11450297
    Abstract: An electronic device such as a head-mounted device may have a display that is viewable by a user from eye boxes. The electronic device may have a gaze tracking system that monitors a user's eyes in the eye boxes to gather gaze direction information. The display may have a central portion and a peripheral portion. The peripheral portion may have a lower resolution than the central portion and may be used in displaying content that is viewable in a user's peripheral vision. During operation, control circuitry in the electronic device may adjust peripheral content on the peripheral portion to correct for parallax-induced mismatch between the peripheral content and central content on the central portion of the display. The control circuitry may also depower peripheral pixels that are determined to be unviewable based on the gaze direction. Diffusers may be used to hide seams between the central and peripheral display portions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 3, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 20, 2022
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: William W. Sprague, David W. Lum, Pretesh A. Mascarenhas, Shubham A. Gandhi, Tyler B. Milhem
  • Patent number: 11442543
    Abstract: A head-mounted display may display images in eye boxes. Right and left gaze tracking sensors may gather left eye gaze information from a left eye box and right eye gaze information from a right eye box. During operation in a first mode in which the right and left gaze tracking sensors are not impaired, gaze information from the right and left gaze tracking sensors may be used in presenting foveated and distortion-corrected image content on the displays and/or in otherwise operating the left and right displays. During operation in a second mode in which one of the gaze tracking sensors is impaired, gaze information for the impaired sensor may be estimated from gaze information for the unimpaired sensor in combination with an object depth estimate based on depth buffer information, vestibulo-ocular-reflex gain information, and historical information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 2021
    Date of Patent: September 13, 2022
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Yashas Rai Kurlethimar, Giovanni Carbone, Milad Akhlaghi Bouzan, Nicolas P. Bonnier, William W. Sprague
  • Patent number: 11195495
    Abstract: An electronic device such as a head mounted device may have a display that displays an image for a user. Head-mounted support structures may be used to support the display and to support lenses. The image on the display is visible through the lenses from eye boxes. The presence of the user's nose and the presence of opaque lens holder structures presents a risk that some of the image will be obscured by undesired black regions. To reduce or eliminate these black regions, facial illumination may be generated using a light source in the electronic device. The facial illumination may be provided by a light source such as a light-emitting diode die or laser or may be provided by a corner region of the display that contains pixels that do not supply any part of the image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 7, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Jeremy C. Franklin, Andreas G. Weber, Brandon E. Clarke, Forrest C. Wang, Wey-Jiun Lin, William W. Sprague
  • Patent number: 11064387
    Abstract: One exemplary implementation involves performing operations at an electronic device with one or more processors and a computer-readable storage medium. The device establishes a wireless communication link with a host device. The device receives, from the host device, a left eye frame and a right eye frame via a sequence of left eye frame transmissions and right eye frame transmissions. The device switches data transmissions schemes according to wireless commination link quality or eye gaze tracking. Adjusting transmission format based on transmission quality of the wireless communication link allows the devices to take advantage of greater bandwidth when available to save power. An additional transmission format is based on alternately transmitting left eye and right eye frames for very low bandwidth.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 14, 2019
    Date of Patent: July 13, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Aleksandr M. Movshovich, Arthur Y. Zhang, Hao Pan, Holly E. Gerhard, Jim C. Chou, Moinul H. Khan, Paul V. Johnson, Sorin C. Cismas, Sreeraman Anantharaman, William W. Sprague
  • Publication number: 20200174284
    Abstract: A head-mounted display may include a display system and an optical system in a housing. The display system may have displays that produce images. Positioners may be used to move the displays relative to the eye positions of a user's eyes. An adjustable optical system may include tunable lenses such as tunable cylindrical liquid crystal lenses. The displays may be viewed through the lenses when the user's eyes are at the eye positions. A sensor may be incorporated into the head-mounted display to measure refractive errors in the user's eyes. The sensor may include waveguides and volume holograms, and a camera for gathering light that has reflected from the retinas of the user's eyes. Viewing comfort may be enhanced by adjusting display positions relative to the eye positions and/or by adjusting lens settings based on the content being presented on the display and/or measured refractive errors.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 3, 2018
    Publication date: June 4, 2020
    Inventors: Victoria C. Chan, Christina G. Gambacorta, Graham B. Myhre, Hyungryul Choi, Nan Zhu, Phil M. Hobson, William W. Sprague, Edward A. Valko, Qiong Huang, Branko Petljanski, Paul V. Johnson, Brandon E. Clarke, Elijah H. Kleeman
  • Publication number: 20040254350
    Abstract: various embodiments of the invention provide human immune response associated proteins (TRAP) and polynucleotides which identify and encode IRAP. Embodiments of the invention also provide expression vectors, host cells, antibodies, agonists, and antagonists. Other embodiments provide methods for diagnosing, treating, or preventing disorders associated with aberrant expression of IRAP.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 19, 2004
    Publication date: December 16, 2004
    Inventors: Anne Ho, Mariah R Baughn, Shanya D Becha, Neil Burford, Vicki S Elliott, Brooke M Emerling, Ian J Forsythe, Ann E Gorvad, Jennifer A Griffin, April JA Hafalia, Cynthia D Honchell, John D Burrill, Julie J Blake, Preeti G Lal, Ernestine A Lee, Joseph P Marquis, Patricia M Lehr-Mason, Sally Lee, William W Sprague, Anita Swarnakar, Y Tom Tang, Bao Tran, Uyen K Tran, Umesh G Bhatia, Narinder K Chawla, Bridget A Warren, Wenjin Zheng, Yuming Xu, Henry Yue