US Patent Issued to Apple on Sept. 22 for "Preload force optimization for stable ball bearing contact" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 24 -- United States Patent no. 12,744,434, issued on Sept. 22, was assigned to Apple Inc. (Cupertino, Calif.).

"Preload force optimization for stable ball bearing contact" was invented by Scott W Miller (Los Gatos, Calif.) and Hao Zheng (Cupertino, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Various embodiments include a device (e.g., a camera or other type of device) that optimizes a preload force for a ball bearing voice coil motor (VCM) actuator in order to achieve a stable ball bearing contact. To optimize the preload force, a plate may be placed and/or shaped in a way that causes the center of the preload force to be at a location that results in stable ball bearing cont...