Apple receives patent for Touch ID biometrics feature

Apple has been granted a U.S. patent relating to its Touch ID biometrics feature, according to a report by Patently Apple.

Apple’s granted patent 9,436,864 is titled “Electronic device performing finger biometric pre-matching and related methods“, which was originally filed in August 2012 and recently published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The patent covers Apple’s invention relating to the field of finger sensors, or more specifically, Apple’s Touch ID.

The patent reads, “The electronic device may include a processor coupled to the finger biometric sensor to acquire finger matching biometric data from the finger biometric sensor, and perform a finger pre-matching between a subset of the acquired finger matching biometric data and the subset of stored finger matching biometric data and based upon context data to generate pre-match data.

“The processor may also perform a finger matching between the acquired finger biometric data and the stored finger matching biometric data based upon the pre-match data.”

It is also worth noting that the patent lists Apple’s senior engineering manager Giovanni Gozzini — who joined Apple via their acquisition of Authentec — as the sole inventor.

Article Topics

Apple  |  biometrics  |  fingerprint sensors  |  fingerprints  |  patents  |  research and development  |  Touch ID