Apple Seeks Patent on Fused Glass Enclosures for Use on iPhones, iPads, iPods, Displays, and Televisions

Apple last week filed for a European patent (via Patently Apple) on methods for fusing glass pieces together to create various types of glass enclosures for a number of products. While the patent application specifically addresses the general concept of such devices, examples and drawings included in the application outline how the process could be applied to such products as iPhones, iPads, iPods, displays, and even televisions.

Three independent claims in the application describe Apple's use of fused glass to create housings to cover displays or other components:

1. An electronic device, comprising: a display; and a housing in which the display is mounted, wherein the housing includes glass structures that have a recess that receives at least part of the display, wherein the glass housing structures include a planar glass member fused with a peripheral glass member that extends around at least some peripheral edge portions of the planar glass member to form the recess.

11. An electronic device, comprising: an electronic device housing formed from fused glass members including at least first and second opposing planar glass members that are separated by a gap; and display structures inserted into the gap.

20. A method of forming an electronic device, comprising: polishing a planar glass member; fusing a peripheral glass member to at least part of an edge portion of the planar glass member to thicken the planar glass member at the edge portion; and attaching the planar glass member and fused peripheral glass member to a housing structure.

apple_fused_glass_patent_1

Example showing an extruded glass enclosure with fused end cap

Further descriptions suggest that while glass display housings could be paired with enclosures made of other materials as on many Apple products, entire enclosures could be also be made of glass.

Of notable interest, Apple design chief Jonathan Ive is named as one of the inventors on the patent, along with Apple designers Peter Russell-Clarke and Mike Pilliod.

apple_fused_glass_patent_3

Hand-drawn figure from Apple's original U.S. filing showing a display and other components inserted into a fused all-glass enclosure

Interestingly, the European patent application cites as priority a U.S. application filed in January 2012. That application was quietly published on July 25 of this year following the expiration of the 18-month confidentiality period on applications, although the application did not specifically name Apple as the assignee of the rights. That application also included rather crude hand drawings for its figures, drawings that were translated into more professional illustrations for the European filing.

Tag: Patent

Popular Stories

best buy holiday

Best Buy Reveals Black Friday Plans With Sitewide Sales Available Now

Friday November 8, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Black Friday sales are continuing today with Best Buy kicking off early Black Friday deals that will last for the next few days. Similar to other retailers, Best Buy's early Black Friday event includes sitewide savings on Apple products, headphones, TVs, monitors, video games, and more. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may...
mac mini thermal architecture feature

New Mac Mini Has Modular Storage, 256GB Model Will Have Faster SSD

Friday November 8, 2024 7:06 am PST by
Apple has returned to using two 128GB storage chips in the new Mac mini with 256GB of storage, according to a partial teardown video shared on social media today. This means the base-model Mac mini with the M4 chip will not have significantly slower SSD speeds compared to higher-end configurations of the computer with 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB of storage, as multiple NAND chips allows for faster SSD...
General Final Cut Pro Feature

Apple Likely to Announce Final Cut Pro Update This Week With These New Features

Sunday November 10, 2024 12:13 pm PST by
In its announcement video for the new Mac mini last month, Apple teased an "upcoming" version of Final Cut Pro for the Mac. Apple will likely announce the update during the annual Final Cut Pro Creative Summit, which begins this Wednesday. The conference is held in association with Apple, and attendees will be visiting Apple Park on the first day. Apple already teased four new features...
Generic iOS 18

Everything New in iOS 18.2 Beta 2

Monday November 4, 2024 12:34 pm PST by
Apple today seeded the second betas of upcoming iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2 updates to developers, and Apple is continuing to refine the Apple Intelligence capabilities. There are also a handful of smaller features that are worth knowing about. Find My Find My has a new option to Share Item Location with an "airline or trusted person" that can help you locate something that you've misplaced....
iphone passcode green

Cops Suspect iOS 18 iPhones Are Communicating to Force Reboots, Making Unlocking Harder

Thursday November 7, 2024 2:20 pm PST by
Law enforcement officials in Detroit, Michigan are warning other police officers about an alleged iPhone change that causes Apple devices stored for forensic examination to spontaneously restart, reports 404 Media. iPhones that are undergoing examination have apparently been rebooting, which makes them harder to unlock with brute force methods, and Michigan police think that it's due to a...
maxresdefault

Hands On With Apple's New M4 Mac Mini

Friday November 8, 2024 12:21 pm PST by
Apple launched the new Mac mini, iMac, and MacBook Pro models with M4 chips today, and because the Mac mini is the only one of the machines that got a design update, we thought we'd check it out to see how it compares to the prior version. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The 2024 version of the Mac mini is much smaller than the previous M2 model, so it takes up...
iphone 6 thickness

iPhone 17 'Air' May Not Be Much Thinner Than iPhone 6

Monday November 11, 2024 5:18 am PST by
Next year's iPhone 17 "Air" model may not be as thin as Apple planned, according to a rumor originating in Korea. According to the news aggregator account "yeux1122" on Naver, citing industry sources, Apple has run into problems making the new iPhone 17 model sufficiently thin. The device's reduced thickness is apparently dependent on manufacturing a battery with a thinner substrate, but...

Top Rated Comments

AngerDanger Avatar
147 months ago
I'm amazed at how little I understand that patent jargon.

After following steps 1, 11, and 20, I've rendered Apple's next hit product:

Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
M-O Avatar
147 months ago
the new ifixit toolkit will include a hammer.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
goobot Avatar
147 months ago
So basically this.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
KazKam Avatar
147 months ago
And talk about difficult to service...
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bbeagle Avatar
147 months ago
apple is worse than monsanto when it comes to patents..
All the companies patent.... for example, here's a new one of Google's...

Google patents the launching of apps when you unlock your screen! Draw a triangle, launch the camera app - draw a square, launch the phone app. So much different than clicking icons, huh?

http://vr-zone.com/articles/google-patents-functionality-to-launch-apps-through-pattern-unlock-on-android/49728.html (http://vr-zone.com/articles/google-patents-functionality-to-launch-apps-through-pattern-unlock-on-android/49728.html)

Tell me that this is a novel idea, and 'worthy' of a patent unlike the Apple patents.

The thing is - we just hear of Apple patents on here, not other company patents.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Daze & Confuse Avatar
147 months ago
Tell me that this is a novel idea, and 'worthy' of a patent unlike the Apple patents.

The thing is - we just hear of Apple patents on here, not other company patents.
You're totally right - because if another company is being an *******, we should applaud Apple when they sink to the same lows!

So next time Coke poisons a water supply in India does that mean we're all cool for Apple to just dump some heavy metal in the Chinese drinking water? Because you know, other companies are doing it.....

We need to be adults and realise that just because we like Apple as a whole and the great stuff it does, we don't have to defend everything it does.

We can hate the bad stuff Apple does and still be an Apple supporter.

In fact, if you truly want Apple to continue to improve as a company, that's exactly what you should do.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)