Apple wins patent for ‘in-advance eSIM management notification’

The iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR feature a Dual SIM with a nano-SIM and an eSIM. Now Apple has been granted a patent (number 10,334,427) for an “in-advance eSIM management notification.”

An eSIM is a digital SIM that allows you to activate a cellular plan from your carrier without having to use a physical nano-SIM. You can use a Dual SIM to:

• Use one number for business and another number for personal calls.

• Add a local data plan when you travel outside of the country or region.

• Have separate voice and data plans.

• Both of your phone numbers can make and receive voice calls and send and receive SMS and MMS. Your iPhone can use one cellular data network at a time.

Here’s Apple’s summary of the invention: “Techniques to manage notifications for state changes of eSIMs of a mobile device are described. Processing circuitry of the mobile device provides a command to the eUICC to delete an eSIM. 

“The eUICC changes the state of the eSIM to a locked state and generates a notification of the forthcoming state change before completion of the transition to the deleted state. The processing circuitry sends the notification to a provisioning server and provides to the eUICC a response indicating successful delivery of the notification, and the eUICC subsequently transitions the eSIM to the deleted state. 

“While the eSIM is in the locked state, applications and files of the eSIM can be unusable. In some embodiments, credentials of the eSIM can be reused to re-authenticate with a wireless network in order to deliver the notification to the provisioning server.”

Of course, Apple files for — and is granted — lots of patents by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Many are for inventions that never see the light of day. However, you never can tell which ones will materialize in a real product.