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Apple Receives a New Patent For 'Smart Fabric' (dwell.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the new-and-improved dept.

MikeChino writes: Is Apple branching out into clever clothing? On January 1, 2019, the tech giant was awarded an original design patent for "Fabric." First filed for in September 2016, the "Fabric" patent shows a swatch of a ridged material in gray, dark gray, and white to represent contrasting appearances. Apple has filed for several patents in the last few years related to combining technology with fabric, but this is the first glimpse we've had at what that fabric might look like. The "smart" fabric could sense environmental changes, warn the wearer of various events, and/or respond to pressure and touch.

As Dwell notes, "Apple's other fabric-related patents have involved a jacket that sends tactile or audible signals to visually and hearing impaired users -- so they can walk around without a cane or guide dog -- and a force-sensing fabric with interwoven circuits that could be used in a glove to track a wearer's vital signs and control devices wirelessly."

5 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Events by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The "smart" fabric could sense environmental changes, warn the wearer of various events

    You mean like when it's cold outside?

    I already have a sensor for that.

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    No sig today...
    1. Re:Events by Z00L00K · · Score: 2

      How many Science Fiction stories have already been written on this subject?

      It should be sufficient to declare as prior art. Precedence - see waterbed invented by Heinlein and placed in the Public Domain by him.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  2. Could you just imagine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If Apple actually did anything with all these patents besides hinder innovation?

  3. Have you read TFS, let alone TFA? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    TFS makes it clear that this is a design patent. TFA makes it even clearer, when it says the "Fabric" patent is a claim on an "ornamental design for a fabric,". This is not a patent on technology, it's a patent on a design. Nobody else can make smart fabric that looks like Apple's. So what? Change the weave, add a pattern, change the color even, and now the patent doesn't apply.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. Urgh, not Apple! by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

    I mean Apple has practically made computers, MP3 players, and phones fashion items. Now they're going to do the same thing with clothes? Let's keep fashion and style out of such an important commodity! We don't want clothes that cost a huge amount of money just because they have a logo on them, or have some distinctive, but not very practical, look to them.

    What next? Shoes?

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    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.