Patently Apple

Apple Revisits their Future Visual Expander Feature

 
The US Patent and Trademark Office has published a handful of Apple's patent applications today that mainly consists of continuation patents. Interestingly, within this group, we see that Apple has resubmitted and/or expanded upon their "Visual Expander" patent. The reason that this is interesting is that while the patent was resubmitted back in late June, Apple had actually been granted a patent for it in July. This advanced multi-touch feature which has yet to surface on any portable device, may in fact be one of the advances coming to a future iPad and/or iMac Touch. This report revisits Apple's "Visual Expander" patent in respect to multi-touch features for anyone who missed out on it on the first go-around while touching on Apple's "Back to the Mac" event scheduled for next week.  

Apple Wins Patents for XGrid, iCal, Parental Controls & Keyboard

 
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 18 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In our first report we primarily covered three colossal patent wins for Apple in the field of Multi-Touch Technology. In this report, we cover several other granted patents published today relating to Apple's OS X Server XGrid, Apple's calendar app iCal, important iPhone parental controls along with a few design patents covering the 3G iPhone dock and Apple's current wireless keyboard.  

Apple Wins Three Colossal Multi-Touch Related Patents

 
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 18 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this first report, we focus on one of the most important technologies that are empowering Apple's smart device revolution: Multi-Touch. Apple has been awarded three colossal multi-touch related patents. The patents cover multi-touch displays that detect the motion of two or more fingers as well as the tracking of multiple fingers and palm contacts using proximity sensors that enable unprecedented integration of typing, resting, pointing, scrolling and 3D manipulation. One of Apple's patents also makes it crystal clear that multi-touch will extend beyond the iPod, iPhone and iPad and eventually advance to devices such as the MacBook and the iMac.  

Apple Files for "Game Center" Trademark in China

 
On October 10, 2010, China's Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's latest trademark application for "Game Center" under application 301731753. Apple has filed their trademark under a single International Class covering video and computer game software. To run Game Center on your iPhone (3GS or 4) or iPod touch, you'll simply need to upgrade to OS 4.1.  

Apple Files for "AirPlay" Trademark in China

 
On October 7, 2010, the Patent & Trademark Office in China published Apple's latest trademark application for "AirPlay" under application 301729972. Apple has filed their trademark under six extensively, if not ridiculously, detailed International Classes. The classes mainly cover services such as "computer software services, telecommunication services, educational and entertainment services," including but not limited to "music, entertainment, television programs, motion pictures, news, sports, games and cultural events."  

Apple Considers MagSafe for Portable Devices like the iPad

 
On October 7, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a continuation patent application from Apple that may reveal their intention of integrating the MagSafe power connector into future portables such as the iPhone or iPad. Apple put the pedal to the metal on this continuation patent filing which was only filed in June of this year. Is someone in a rush or something?  

Patent Infringement Lawsuit: Motorola vs. Apple – Illinois Case 1

 
It looks like revenge time for Motorola. Motorola Mobility, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Motorola, has filed three separate patent infringement lawsuits against Apple which in total consists of eighteen patents. In the first case filed in the Illinois Northern District Court, Motorola alleges that Apple infringed on six of their patents. The patents cover a wide range of technology including paging systems to cryptographic protection to radio frequency (RF) cellular telecommunication systems and more. Motorola points to various Apple products that are allegedly infringing on their patents including all iPhones, the iPad 3G and in some cases all Mac hardware from the MacBook on through to Apple's Mac Pro workstation. The presiding Judge in the first of two cases in Illinois is John F. Grady.  

Patent Infringement Lawsuit: Motorola vs. Apple – Illinois Case 2

Motorola Mobility, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Motorola, has filed three separate patent infringement lawsuits against Apple. In the second case filed in the Illinois Northern District Court, Motorola alleges that Apple infringed on a second set of six patents which covers a wide range of technologies relating to wireless communications including mechanisms to selectively enable or disable GPS circuitry in a cellular telephone to a sensor controlled user interface and more. Motorola points to various Apple products and services that are allegedly infringing on their patents including all iPhones, the iPad 3G, Apple TV, the iPod touch and even the App Store. The presiding Judge in this second of two cases in Illinois is duly noted as being James F. Holderman.

 

Patent Infringement Lawsuit: Motorola vs. Apple – Florida Case 3

 
Motorola Mobility, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Motorola, has filed three separate patent infringement lawsuits against Apple. In the third case filed in the Southern District Court of Florida, Motorola alleges that Apple infringed on six of their patents. The patents cover a wide range of technology including wireless messaging systems, pager status, transferring data and a receiver having a concealed external antenna. Motorola points to various Apple products and services that are allegedly infringing on their patents including all iPhones, the iPad 3G and in some cases all Mac hardware from the MacBook on through to Apple's Mac Pro workstation, MobileMe and more. The presiding Judge in this third case filed in Florida is duly noted as Ursula Ungaro.

 

Patent Infringement Lawsuit Details: Microsoft vs. Motorola

 
Late last week Microsoft filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Motorola in the Western District Court of Washington at Seattle. The lawsuit appears to be concerning Motorola allegedly infringement of Microsoft's technology that is laid out in the complaint under nine granted patents. The complaint zero's in on Motorola's "Droid 2" and "Charm" smartphones. According to Microsoft's legal counsel, their intellectual property rights in this case covers technology that relates to sending and receiving email on-the-go, managing calendars, surfing the web, playing music and videos, as well as running apps and managing memory for storing data. Their statement ends by trying to look like one of the good guys: "Our action today merely seeks to ensure respect for our intellectual property rights infringed by Android devices; and judging by the recent actions by Apple and Oracle, we are not alone in this respect." Microsoft is seeking, amongst other things, no less than a "reasonable royalty." For those interested in this case, our report will provide you with handy links to each of the patents listed in Microsoft's legal Complaint and more.

 

Apple Gets the Green Light for a New Graphics Processor?

 
Every once in a while I find that trying to read and decipher one of Apple's patents is painfully like being an archeologist trying to find meaning in an ancient manuscript that's written in some form of Sanskrit. I'm not even going to pretend to understand the depths of this never ending granted patent which contains in excess of 200 patent figures. All that matters is that Apple's granted patent states emphatically that the invention is about a new graphics processor and method. The graphics processor is specifically referred to as a Deferred Shading Graphics Processor or DSGP. The invention relates to computing systems, to 3D computer graphics and particularly to structure and method for a 3D graphics processor implementing differed shading and other enhanced features. The granted patent appears to be discussing a desktop/workstation graphics processor and interestingly, Apple may have acquired this patent. The lead inventor, listed as Jerome Duluk, used to work at NVIDIA.

 

Apple Wins Patents for Cover Flow, Time Machine and Magic Mouse

 
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 14 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. The notables within this group are strangely timed to the Mirror Worlds patent infringement lawsuit against Apple. Apple has won another Cover Flow patent in addition to a set of patents pertaining to Apple's Time Machine. Both of these areas of technology were challenged in the lawsuit. Apple has also won a pair of patents today that relate to both the design and technology behind their Magic Mouse.  

Apple Patent: iPhone Display May Double as an RFID Transponder

 
Patently Apple first noted Apple's NFC patent trend back in late 2009. Then the patent downpour arrived in April and May of 2010 which covered everything from embedding NFC/RFID technology into home appliances and devices right on through to the iWallet. But a European patent filing of Apple's that was published late last week provided us with a little background. It appears that Apple's work on bringing this technology to the iPhone and iPod touch actually began right after the iPhone debuted in 2007. Today's report covers this patent which discusses using a cellphone (iPhone) and Audio/Video Player (iPod touch) as both an RFID tag reader and a tag. At the heart of this patent, Apple states that "the RFID antenna could be placed in the touch sensor panel, such that the touch sensor panel could now additionally function as an RFID transponder." This is the technology that could be at the heart of Apple's future iWallet and iKey.

 

Olympic Developments Sues Apple for Selling Goods on iTunes

 
A private Delaware company by the name of Olympic Developments AG, LLC, has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the California Central District Court Los Angeles Division against several major technology companies including Apple Inc., Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, Inc., DirecTV, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Nintendo of America, Inc., Sony Computer Entertainment of America, LLC, Sony Electronics, Inc. and Valve Corporation. The lawsuit, in context with Apple specifically, appears to be concerning the sale of goods through Apple's iTunes and App Stores via an iPad or iPhone in a manner claimed in the patents-in-suit.  

Apple Files Four iAd Trademark Applications

 
On October 1, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's latest trademark application for "iAd" under applications 85139086, 85139109, 85139119 and 85139138. Apple has filed their trademark under four distinct International Classes which covers such matters as computer software, marketing, promotional services and being able to serve and transmit audio, video, multimedia, and advertising. Apple's iAd was launched in April 2010 and reaches millions of iPhone and iPod touch users around the world.