Granted Patent B2

US 12,445,273 · App. 17/603,562 · Granted Oct 14, 2025

Inventors: Emmanuel Lalande (San Francisco, CA); Michael C. Laster (Santa Clara, CA); Scott Lopatin (San Francisco, CA); Munish K. Poonia (San Jose, CA); Tommy Rochette (San Jose, CA); Yannick L. Sierra (San Francisco, CA); Tim Taubert (Berlin, DE); Steven A. Myers (San Jose, CA)

Assignee: Apple Inc.

H04L9/085H04L9/0819H04L9/0891H04W4/029H04W12/0431

Abstract

Claims (38)

1. A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions to cause one or more processor to perform operations comprising:

determining, for a wireless accessory device by an owner device associated with an owner, a share recipient and a set of capabilities to delegate to the share recipient, wherein the wireless accessory device is owned by the owner;

creating a storage record including fields to store an identifier of the share recipient, an identifier of the wireless accessory device, and the set of capabilities to be shared with the share recipient;

sending, by the owner device, a share request to a share recipient device that is associated with the share recipient;

in response to receipt of an accept message from the share recipient device, marking, by the owner device, the storage record as accepted; and

sending a set of cryptographic keys to the share recipient device to enable the share recipient device to perform the set of capabilities on the wireless accessory device.

2. The non-transitory machine-readable medium as in claim 1 , the operations additionally comprising writing the storage record to a network connected datastore.

3. The non-transitory machine-readable medium as in claim 2 , wherein the network connected datastore is stored on a remote server device.

4. The non-transitory machine-readable medium as in claim 2 , wherein the storage record is written to a local container associated with the network connected datastore and the local container is synchronized with a remote storage device.

5. The non-transitory machine-readable medium as in claim 1 , wherein the set of capabilities to delegate to the share recipient includes connecting to the wireless accessory device, performing an action on the wireless accessory device, and querying a location server for a location of the wireless accessory device.

6. The non-transitory machine-readable medium as in claim 5 , wherein performing the action on the wireless accessory device includes causing the wireless accessory device to play a sound and wherein sending the share request to the share recipient device includes creating a network communication channel with the share recipient device via an identity server using the identifier of the share recipient.

7. The non-transitory machine-readable medium as in claim 6 , the operations additionally comprising receiving the accept message from the share recipient device via the network communication channel.

8. The non-transitory machine-readable medium as in claim 1 , wherein marking the storage record as accepted includes updating a field of the storage record.

9. The non-transitory machine-readable medium as in claim 1 , the operations additionally comprising, in response to receipt of a deny message from the share recipient device, deleting the storage record.

10. The non-transitory machine-readable medium as in claim 1 , the operations additionally comprising generating the set of cryptographic keys based on stored key material, wherein the key material is collaboratively generated with the wireless accessory device.

11. The non-transitory machine-readable medium as in claim 10 , wherein the set of cryptographic keys includes keys for one or more privacy periods of the wireless accessory device, and the operations additionally comprising changing, each privacy period, one or more keys used to connect with the wireless accessory device.

12. The non-transitory machine-readable medium as in claim 11 , the operations additionally comprising periodically sending an updated set of cryptographic keys to the share recipient device.

13. The non-transitory machine-readable medium as in claim 11 , the operations additionally comprising receiving a request from the share recipient device for additional keys, validating the request via the storage record, and sending an updated set of cryptographic keys to the share recipient device using the identifier of the share recipient included in the storage record.

14. A data processing system on an electronic device, the data processing system comprising:

memory to store instructions; and

one or more processors to execute the instructions, wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to:

determine, for a wireless accessory device by an owner device associated with an owner, a share recipient and a set of capabilities to delegate to the share recipient, wherein the wireless accessory device is owned by the owner;

create a storage record including fields to store an identifier of the share recipient, an identifier of the wireless accessory device, and the set of capabilities to be shared with the share recipient;

send, by the owner device, a share request to a share recipient device that is associated with the share recipient;

in response to receipt of an accept message from the share recipient device, mark, by the owner device, the storage record as accepted; and

send a set of cryptographic keys to the share recipient device to enable the share recipient device to perform the set of capabilities on the wireless accessory device.

15. The data processing system as in claim 14 , wherein the one or more processors are additionally to write the storage record to a cloud datastore.

16. The data processing system as in claim 14 , wherein sending the share request to the share recipient device includes creating a network communication channel with the share recipient device via an identity server using the identifier of the share recipient.

17. The data processing system as in claim 16 , wherein the one or more processors are additionally to receive the accept message from the share recipient device via the network communication channel.

18. A method comprising:

on an electronic device associated with a share recipient:

receiving, from an owner device associated with an owner, a request to accept a share of a capability associated with a wireless accessory device, the request including a storage record, wherein the storage record includes fields to store an identifier of the share recipient, an identifier of the wireless accessory device, and a set of capabilities to be shared with the share recipient, wherein the wireless accessory device is owned by the owner;

presenting an interface on a display of the electronic device to accept or decline the request;

sending a message indicating acceptance of the request in response to receipt of an input via the interface;

updating the storage record to indicate acceptance of the request; and

receiving a set of cryptographic keys to enable the electronic device to perform an operation associated with the wireless accessory device.

19. The method as in claim 18 , wherein the operation associated with the wireless accessory device includes detecting a wireless beacon signal transmitted by the wireless accessory device.

20. The method as in claim 19 , wherein the operation associated with the wireless accessory device includes placing the wireless accessory device in a near owner mode in response to detecting the wireless beacon signal transmitted by the wireless accessory device, querying a location server for a location of the wireless accessory device, or sending a command to the wireless accessory device to cause the wireless accessory device to play a sound.

Continuity (3)

References Cited (371)