The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 28 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. Our first patent report of the day covers Apple's screen rotation patent relating to a touch-screen display. Late last week Apple lost their bid to nix a patent troll's screen rotation suit which used a patent that focused on a desktop display that could physically change the orientation the screen from landscape to portrait. Apple's iMac doesn't do that. Apple's touchscreen iDevices change orientation but it would appear to be a completely different approach. With that said, Apple is off to battle the troll. Lastly, Apple has been granted three design patents with the iPad 2 cellular model being the most important.
Apple Patent: Screen Rotation on a Touch-Screen Display
Apple has received a Granted Patent that generally relates to devices with touch-screen displays, and more particularly to scrolling lists and to translating, rotating, and scaling electronic documents on devices with touch-screen displays.
Technically speaking, in the method, a multifinger twisting gesture is detected on or near the touch screen display. The multifinger twisting gesture has a corresponding degree of rotation. A 90 degree screen-rotation command is executed if the corresponding degree of rotation exceeds a predefined degree of rotation. A screen rotation command with an acute angle of rotation is executed and, upon ceasing to detect the multifinger twisting gesture, a screen rotation command with an angle of rotation opposite to the acute angle is executed if the corresponding degree of rotation is less than the predefined degree of rotation.
To review this invention, see granted patent 8,312,371.
Apple Received 3 Granted Design Patents
Apple has been granted 3 design patents today which cover the iPad 2 cellular (D670,692), the original iPad cover and the animation of an iBook turning a page.
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. About Comments: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit comments.
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