On October 31, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple’s newly granted patent for a “Hybrid ground grid for printed circuit board,” originally filed in February 2004. Apple’s granted patent relates generally to printed-wiring board layout. In particular, the invention relates to a printed circuit board construction having a hybrid grid network of ground traces formed on two or more layers of the printed circuit board to provide electrical paths capable of reducing Electromagnetic Emissions and improving the Electromagnetic Immunity performance as well as being capable of accommodating a wide range of component arrangements and signal trace configurations.

Patent FIG. 7 is a simplified schematic depiction of a track pad implementation incorporating a ground grid constructed in accordance with the principles of the invention.

The inventors listed on patent application number 7,129,416 are: Robert Steinfeld and Cheung-Wei Lam

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