Apple Patent Helped to Kickstart Mobile Revolution

The patent outlines the process underlying the biometric matching system now in place on all new iPhones and iPads, which helped kick off the mobile revolution.

Apple has received approval for a patent pertaining to one of its most important recent innovations—its Touch ID fingerprint scanning system.

As Patently Apple reports, it’s just one of 45 patents the company has just been granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office. The patent basically outlines the process underlying the biometric matching system now in place on all new iPhones and iPads, which scans a user’s finger and then matches that biometric data to a user profile.

Patently Apple notes that the patent was originally filed in the third quarter of 2012, and that its inventor is listed as Apple Senior Engineering Manager Giovanni Gozzini, who worked for biometrics specialist Authentec when it was acquired by Apple that same year. The first fingerprint-scanning iPhone emerged the following year, with Apple proving to be a pioneering force in popularizing such mobile biometric technology. Now, some analysts are predicting that as early as 2018, all new smartphones will feature such technology.

Thus, the approval of patent 9,436,864, “Electronic device performing finger biometric pre-matching and related methods”, helps to illustrate just how transformative one inventive idea can prove to be.

Source: Patently Apple