Chicago (IL) - Microsoft has been granted a patent on using the human boody as conductive medium for the transmission of power and data. According to the filing, the company believes it can network power-sources and peripheral devices by coupling sets of electrodes to the human body.

Microsoft its the patent 6,754,472 as "Method and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human body". The company justifies the idea of using the human body as conductor with the fact that "people have begun wearing electronic devices on their bodies." This would include wristwatches, pagers and PDAs, as well as small displays "mounted on headgear."

Such devices could not only communicate with each other but also distribute power to each other "on or near the human body by capacitively coupling picoamp currents through the human body of a person," the company said.

Microsofts idea is to for example use for example a pulsed DC signal or AC signal as the power source. By using multiple power supply signals of differing frequencies, different devices could be selectively powered. Digital data and other information signals such as audio signals could be modulated on the power signal using frequency and amplitude modulation techniques, the company said.

The patent was granted on June 22, 2004.