Quote the operative limitation: one surface, two input types, sensed together. HiDeep's grant US12645309B2, "Pen and touch input system" (issued June 2, 2026; assignee HiDeep Inc.), classifies to G06F 3/03545 (stylus/digitizer sensing), 3/0416 (capacitive touch), and 3/046 (electromagnetic pen). The element that does the work is the integrated sensing path that resolves both a pen and fingers on the same panel.
Here is the difficulty the claim addresses. A capacitive touchscreen senses the change in electric field from a conductive finger. An active pen reports finer data — pressure, tilt, a precise tip position — often through a different sensing mechanism. Running both on one surface means the panel has to tell a deliberate pen stroke from a resting palm, track the pen at high precision while ignoring incidental touch, and switch contexts seamlessly. "Palm rejection" is the consumer-facing name for one slice of this; the underlying claim is the combined sense-and-disambiguate architecture.
So the load-bearing element is the disambiguation, not the pen or the touch panel alone — each of those is old. The invention is sensing and separating both modalities on the same surface. Read the claim and the scope is the combined system; a device that supports only touch, or only a pen, does not read on it.
Microsoft has long-standing granted art adjacent to this. US10503340B2, "System and method for multiple object detection on a digitizer system" (issued December 10, 2019; assignee Microsoft Technology Licensing), classifies to G06F 3/046 and 3/03545 — detecting multiple objects on a digitizer, the Surface lineage. Two assignees, the same fundamental contest: making one surface intelligently handle pen and touch at once.
The granted-versus-pending and scope discipline both apply. Both records here are issued B2 grants, so they are assertable. But each is a specific sensing-and-disambiguation configuration, not a claim on "styluses" or "touchscreens" generally. The strategic read for a tablet maker is that the pen-and-touch surface is a layered, contested space where HiDeep, Microsoft, Wacom, and Samsung all hold issued claims — design-around analysis here means walking the actual sensing limitations, not assuming the category is open.