Apple Inc. has a new patent on the market as the United States Patent and Trademark Office approved an intellectual property on March 20.

The patent, titled "Input Device Having Extendable Nib," focuses heavily on input responses on a computing device with emphasis on touch screens.

"Many types of input devices may be used to provide input to computing devices, such as buttons or keys, mice, trackballs, joysticks, touch screens and the like. Touch screens, in particular, are becoming increasingly popular because of their ease and versatility of operation," noted the Apple patent, No. 20140078109.

With touch screens, a user is able to initiate various types of input to the computing device via their finger, stylus, or another object. Therefore, the Apple patent embodies an input device to deliver variable output characteristics onto the computing device.

"In one embodiment, the input device may take the form of a stylus that may be used to communicate with a display, such as a touch screen or touch interface, of a computing device," the patent noted. "The stylus may include a nib or tip that may have variable interaction surface dimensions (as one example, variable lengths that may contact or be sensed by a touch-sensitive surface, such as a touch screen)."

In another example, the nib or tip of the stylus can contain two or more strands extended from the main body of the stylus. The strands of the stylus can provide different interactions on the touch screen, "so this may create a brush-like input to the touch screen."

"As the strands may be relatively flexible, the stylus may feel substantially similar to a paint brush, and the touch screen or computing device may be configured to provide outputs that correspond to a paint brush-type input," the Apple patent added. "For example, as the user swipes the stylus across the page, the interactions of each strand with the touch screen may produce a brush-like output line having varying thicknesses depending on the pressure applied by the user, the angle of the stylus, and so on."

The multi-responsive nib can be produced by various conductive materials, according to the patent, such as metal, doped rubber, and mylar. Either a button or slider on the stylus can switch the extended nib.

The Apple patent inventor is credited to Joel Armstrong-Muntner of San Mateo, Calif. The patent was originally filed to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Sept. 14, 2012.

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