#2 Trademark & Patent Filing: Week Ending 15 October 2026

This is a weekly roundup of new trademark and patent filings from the sports watch and sensor brands this site covers. Trademarks come first, because a registered name usually becomes a product or feature and the name itself is often the clue. Patents follow as evidence of direction, and most never reach a product.

Other sites push out an alert for every patent and trademark the moment it is published. This roundup gathers the week into a single read and keeps your inbox clear. The weekly Deep Dive Digest email covers the wider sports technology news for those who want it.

Also in the Deep Dive series: Regulatory Filing, Legal Files, Fix Files, Feature Files and the Deep Dive Digest.

The filing most likely to matter to athletes this week is a Polar application for the name H12, which follows the naming of the H9 and H10 heart rate straps. Oura was granted three patents covering blood pressure, sleep staging and sleep apnoea, Apple received a patent for a strap that senses tendon and blood vessel movement with laser light, and Garmin published two applications on watch antennas that bear directly on satellite reception.

Trademarks

Polar: H12

An application for the word mark H12 was filed with the European Union Intellectual Property Office in the name of Polar on 12 October 2026 under application number 019434526. The goods and services class and description could not be read from the official record at the time of writing.

Polar’s current chest strap is the H10, which replaced the H7, and its lower-cost strap is the H9. A name in the same series suggests a new heart rate sensor rather than a watch. If that reading is correct, runners, cyclists and triathletes who rely on a strap for accurate interval and power-meter-paired heart rate data would have an H10 successor to consider, possibly with updated connectivity or onboard memory, although the filing itself says nothing about features.

Evidence: Trademark filed, not independently checked. Likelihood: Likely to ship. Source: euipo.europa.eu, reported from around the web

Patents

Apple: a watch strap that reads tendon and blood vessel movement with laser light

US patent 12,761,356, “Wearable device including self-mixing interferometry sensor”, was granted to Apple on 13 October 2026 from an application filed in May 2023. It describes a band with an internal cavity in which one or more self-mixing interferometry sensors shine light onto the inner wall of the band. Movement of that wall, caused by the tendons, blood vessels or muscles beneath it, is converted into a signal.

A strap that senses tendon movement could support gesture control without touching the screen, which is useful mid-session with wet or gloved hands. The same approach applied to blood vessels points towards pulse sensing from the strap rather than the case, which could reduce the motion artefacts that affect optical heart rate during hard efforts.

Evidence: Patent granted. Likelihood: Possible. Source: uspto.gov, reported from around the web

Oura: blood pressure estimated from the shape of each pulse

US patent 12,758,106, “Techniques for determining blood pressure based on morphological features of pulses”, was granted to Oura on 13 October 2026. A ring emits light at several wavelengths and collects a photoplethysmogram for each. The system identifies features around the systolic and diastolic peaks of each heartbeat in every waveform and compares those feature sets to estimate blood pressure.

A cuffless blood pressure trend from a ring worn overnight would give endurance athletes another marker of recovery and accumulated load, alongside resting heart rate and heart rate variability. Any such feature would be likely to report trends rather than clinical readings unless it gained regulatory clearance.

Evidence: Patent granted. Likelihood: Possible. Source: uspto.gov, reported from around the web

Whoop: training and recovery advice adjusted to the menstrual cycle

US patent 12,758,160, “Coaching based on reproductive phases”, was granted on 13 October 2026 from an application filed in September 2023 and is attributed to Whoop. It describes tracking respiratory rate, resting heart rate, heart rate variability and temperature over time, correlating them with reproductive phases, and issuing automatic recommendations on sleep, diet and exercise that suit the user’s current phase.

Whoop already offers cycle insights, so the grant appears to protect coaching it is building on rather than signal a new product. For female athletes, the practical effect would be strain and recovery targets that shift with the hormonal cycle instead of a single baseline across the month.

Evidence: Patent granted. Likelihood: Possible. Source: uspto.gov, reported from around the web

Samsung: a side-mounted electrode for body composition on a watch

US patent 12,761,607, “Wearable device comprising at least one electrode for measuring biometric information”, was granted to Samsung on 13 October 2026. It places an electrode in an opening in the side wall of the watch case, carried on a flexible circuit that wraps around the speaker. Together with electrodes on the rear of the case, it allows body composition to be measured using space inside the device rather than electrodes on the buttons or bezel.

Galaxy Watch body composition readings currently require the user to hold two fingers on the side keys. A dedicated electrode built into the case side could make the measurement simpler and more repeatable, which matters to athletes tracking muscle mass or hydration across a training block.

Evidence: Patent granted. Likelihood: Possible. Source: uspto.gov, reported from around the web

Oura: sleep stages weighted by the body clock

US patent 12,763,198, “Automatic sleep staging classification with circadian rhythm adjustment”, was granted to Oura on 13 October 2026 from an application first filed in April 2022. Physiological data from the wearable is weighted by a model of the user’s circadian rhythm before a machine learning classifier assigns sleep stages, which are then shown in the app.

Weighting by body clock should help sleep staging for athletes whose sleep moves around, such as those travelling across time zones to races or training early in the morning. Oura has described circadian factors in its existing sleep algorithm, so this grant may protect current software more than it predicts a new feature.

Evidence: Patent granted. Likelihood: Possible. Source: uspto.gov, reported from around the web

Oura: sleep apnoea detection by sleeping position

US patent 12,758,416, “Positional obstructive sleep apnea detection system”, was granted to Oura on 13 October 2026. The device combines an optical sensor that records blood oxygen saturation with a position sensor that records sleeping posture, so that breathing disturbances on the back can be compared with those on the side.

Disturbed breathing at night degrades recovery, and positional apnoea can often be improved by changing posture. A ring that reported where oxygen dips occur by position would give athletes something to act on, although any diagnostic claim would require regulatory clearance.

Evidence: Patent granted. Likelihood: Possible. Source: uspto.gov, reported from around the web

Garmin: a watch antenna that switches between frequency bands

US patent application 2026/0312277, “Watch with switchable multi-band antenna configuration”, was published on 8 October 2026 and is attributed to Garmin; the inventor is based in Olathe, Kansas, where Garmin has its headquarters. The case has a conductive bezel and a conductive bottom plate, with ground switches and signal feeds spaced around the plate’s edge. Opening and closing different switches forms an antenna in the lower housing that can be tuned to different frequencies.

A tunable antenna would let a watch favour the satellite band, cellular or Bluetooth link most needed at the moment. For runners and trail athletes, that could mean better dual-frequency GPS accuracy under tree cover or between buildings without enlarging the case.

Evidence: Patent application published. Likelihood: Possible. Source: uspto.gov, reported from around the web

Garmin: a sectioned watch case carrying two antennas

US patent application 2026/0312276, “Multiple section watch with multiple antennas”, was published on 8 October 2026 by the same Olathe inventor and is attributed to Garmin. The housing is divided into sections that include parts of the side wall, lugs and bottom plate. A first antenna uses the conductive bezel and works at one frequency, while a second uses a housing section and works at another.

Using the metal case itself as two separate antennas would allow simultaneous reception on more than one band, for example GPS alongside LTE or satellite messaging, in a metal-bodied watch. That is relevant to athletes who want full-metal builds without a penalty in positional accuracy or connectivity.

Evidence: Patent application published. Likelihood: Possible. Source: uspto.gov, reported from around the web

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Last Updated on 15 October 2026 by tfk the5krunner