The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 16 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In our second and final granted patent report of the day you'll learn about two key patents that Apple has won. The first patent relates to Apple's spreadsheet app known as "Numbers," which is a component of their iWork Suite – and the second patent relates to Multi-Touch technology that emerged in late 2007, just after the iPhone's debut.
Apple Wins a Key Multi-Touch Related Patent
Apple has been granted another key multi-touch related patent titled "Switched Capacitor Projection Scan Multi-Touch Sensor Array. After the iPhone had debuted in 2007, Apple's John Elias filed a patent that would reduce the cost and advance performance of multi-touch displays by integrating touch sensors into a single surface of the touch substrate for sensor circuitry.
Apple's patent FIG. 9 illustrates an exemplary four row and four column multi-touch sensor panel constructed with an array of one-dimensional distributed RC lines; Patent FIG. 12 illustrates an exemplary block diagram of a projection scan multi-touch sensor panel and related components; Apple's patent FIG. 2 illustrates how an exemplary distributed RC line can serve as a touch sensor
For super geeks and competitors legal teams that need to know what Apple has invented here in detail, see granted patent 8,004,500 which was invented by John Elias in Q4 2007.
Apple has been Granted a Patent Relating to their "Numbers" App
Apple has been granted a patent relating to their spreadsheet app known as "Numbers." Apple's productivity suite known as "iWork" debuted in 2005 with a presentation app called Keynote and a word processor called "Pages." Numbers completed this suite in 2007.
Apple's First Claim: A method for associating an object with a data source, comprising: receiving an indication of a selection of an option to paste in a first document an object or a copy of an object cut or copied from a second document; determining a data source identifier associated with the object; and associating the object with a corresponding data source such that when the object is pasted into the first document the object is automatically associated with a data source included in the first document; wherein the data source with which the object is associated comprises: a data source having the data source identifier included in a current paste board that is concurrently pasted into the first document with the object if a data source having the data source identifier exists in the current paste board; an existing data source having the data source identifier included in the first document if a data source having the data source identifier does not exist in the current paste board and if a data source having the data source identifier exists in the first document; or an automatically generated new data source added to the first document that is populated with data extracted from the object if a data source having the data source identifier does not exist in the current paste board and if a data source having the data source identifier does not already exist in the first document. Claim 11: A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the first document and the second document are documents of a spreadsheet application.
Apple credits Peter Berger, Peter Rapp, Michael Trent and Christopher Weeldreyer as the inventors of Granted Patent 8,006,194, originally filed in Q3 2007.
Other Granted Patents Published Today
Granted Patent 8,004,493: "Methods and systems for providing sensory information to devices and peripherals" - (like an iPhone headset or wireless keyboard).
Granted Patent 8,006,192: Layered graphical user interface.
Granted Patent 8,006,121: - Systems and methods for diagnosing and fixing electronic devices.
Granted Patent 8,004,529: Processing an animation file to provide an animated icon.
Granted Patent 8,004,525: Displaying interconnects having an appearance indicating data characteristics: This patent relates to Apple's "Shake" application which is now defunct. Aspects of this application have likely been rolled into Apple's Final Cut Pro X.
Notice: Patently Apple presents only a brief summary of granted patents with associated graphics for journalistic news purposes as each Granted Patent is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any Granted Patent should be read in its entirety for full details.
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Side Note: No Truce in Patent Wars: The Financial Post takes another look at the patent wars raging on in a recent article by Jameson Berkow. Will we see a form of Detente emerge at some point in time? Likely - but it's not on anyone's radar screen just yet.
Here are a Few Great Community Sites covering our Original Report
MacSurfer, Twitter, Facebook, Apple Investor News, Google Reader, UpgradeOSX, TechWatching, Macnews, iPhone World Canada, CBS MarketWatch, Techmeme, 9to5 Mac, MacDailyNews, iPodNN, ZDNet's Between the Lines, CNET, and more.
