Apple Inc. (AAPL) Patent Good For Double The Fun

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is well known for protecting its technology to the fullest extent. This can be seen by the number of patents the Cupertino based company applies for every year, as well as the legal fights it is willing to take on to protect its property.

While some patents are never implemented, others are used time and time again by Apple.

Let’s take a closer look at one of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s latest patents. The company has been granted the patent for: Double-sided touch sensitive panel and flex circuit bonding

As interesting as this sounds, there is a good chance that you don’t have any idea what this technology is able to do. Fortunately, we can clear this up for you by sharing some information from the patent abstract:

“A multi-touch sensor panel can be created using a substrate with column and row traces formed on either side. Metal traces running along the border of the substrate can be used to bring the row traces to the same edge as the column traces. A single flex circuit can be fabricated to connect to the rows and columns on directly opposing sides. Flex printed circuits can be bonded to directly opposing attachment areas of a substrate by cooling one side of the substrate while bonding the other. In addition, “coverlay” material extending over right-angled traces on the flex circuit ensure that those traces do not get shorted should conductive bonding material get squeezed out during bonding. Furthermore, a spacer is placed at the distal end of the flex circuit to apply even bonding pressure over the entire flex circuit attachment area during bonding.”

As you can imagine, a double sided touch panel could be a potential addition to a future Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone (and quite possibly the iPad).

If you remember correctly, we talked about the potential for an iPhone with a wraparound display a couple months ago. For this to become reality, the device would require a double-sided touch sensitive panel.

While this patent awarded to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) may seem far-fetched, the company moved forward with the process for a reason. You never know when something like this will be integrated into a new device.

The patent was filed for on September 16, 2011. Steve Porter Hotelling and Mark Arthur Hamblin are listed as the inventors.