Patently Apple

iPad Sales in China Sky Rocket after Settling Trademark Dispute

While Apple almost escaped having to deal with their iPad trademark dispute in China, they ended up settling the case with Proview Technology for $60 million. Since that time, Apple has almost doubled their iPad sales in China, according to IDC.  

A New Patent Infringement Case against Apple is filed over iCloud

A San Jose based Company by the name of Innovation Automation has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple stating that their iCloud product and service infringes upon two of their patents dating back to 2000. It should also be noted that this plaintiff has filed a similar lawsuit against Amazon within the last 24 hours claiming that their Kindle and distribution service "Cloud Player" violates the very same patents used against Apple.

Apple Continues to Build their Nortel Patent Arsenal

Back on September tenth we posted a report revealing the fact that Apple had acquired 434 LTE centric patents. One of the original sources of our report stated that Rockstar Bidco, a company that Apple holds the majority stake in, acquired 116 LTE patents from Nortel, giving them a total of 434 LTE patents. It's now been revealed that Apple had been acquiring even more patents over the summer and the list is extensive.  

Apple Files Boring Haptics Feature Patent Designed to keep your iPhone from Falling off a Table

Not all Apple patents are exciting and neither should they. A hundred or two boring utility patents add up rather quickly to create something like, well, an iPhone. Today, the US Patent Office revealed one of Apple's latest boring patents that relate to a new haptics feature they're working on. The idea is simple and here's a scenario of the problem: When an iPhone user stupidly places their device on a hard wooden conference table and receives a call, the vibration is amplified due to the hard surface and ends up embarrassing them. Apple's latest invention is about allowing the haptics to automatically lower the vibration so that its sound on a hard surface could be tolerable. Apple has even designed a feature that won't allow a user's iPhone to fall off a table due to this vibrating feature. Isn't it nice to know that Apple is looking out for stupid user habits.  

Apple Tweaks their Famed Tickets Patent

When we first posted our major patent report back in April 2010 titled "Apple Introduces us to a new iTunes 'Concert Ticket +' System," it made major headlines everywhere in the blogosphere. Our extensive report covered Apple's foundational patent in the field of tickets covering everything from concerts to transit to coupons, airlines and much more. This was the foundation for Apple's new iOS 6 Passbook app that was released with Apple's sexy iPhone 5. Today, the US Patent Office revealed that Apple has been tweaking their ticket centric patent and we provide you with the patent link that will allow you to explore it in depth as you see fit.  

Apple Advances their Multi-Level Presence Sensing System

On November 15, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals their ongoing work in advancing presence technology. Apple began their work on this project back in October 2009 and followed through with an extensive patent application in December 2011. In their latter application, Apple was exploring the use of Sonar technology and in their current work Apple reveals a number of other sensors being considered such as Radar. According to Apple, Radar is sensitive enough to detect a user's heartbeat in a room. Another kind of sensor listed could detect carbon dioxide emissions from a user's breath. The system will provide new and faster "awake" functionality, better power saving modes and even advance display interactions with a user. In one example, Apple states that as a user physically moves toward or away from their display, the imagery on their display will automatically zoom in or out. Being that this is Apple's third detailed presence related patent, we could safely say that it's becoming an important trend worth noting going forward.

New Research Report Sees Apple as Leader in Innovation & Implementation

A new ABI research report reveals that Apple's leading position in the mobile computing market is reflected in its average score for innovation and implementation which was 84.7 out of a possible 100. Lenovo placed in second position and Samsung in third spot with respective scores of 77.5 and 74.4. The report also projected a mind-boggling stat on Apple's Ultraportable sales for the year.

Apple Awarded Registered TM Certificate for "Mission Control"

On November 14, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office officially published Apple's Registered Trademark Certificate for "Mission Control." Apple originally filed for the trademark back in April 2011. Mission Control is an App that's found in Apple's OS X Mountain Lion operating system that brings together Exposé, Spaces, Dashboard, and full-screen apps. Mission Control gives a user a bird's-eye view of everything that's running on their system.

Apple Legally Works Out a Deal with Popular Taiwanese Author

Popular Taiwanese author Giddens Ko said Tuesday that he didn't pursue copyright infringement charges against Apple for approving apps using pirated content of his works.  

Media Smells Possible HTC Insider Trading on Apple Agreement

On November 09, 2012, HTC shares rose 7 percent, the maximum daily increase in Taiwan, to close at $7.8 US. This was a full two days prior to the announced HTC-Apple settlement. This has given rise to media speculation that HTC participated in insider trading. Report Updated 11:55 AM

With Windows 8 Chief Out, is Scott Forstall in the Wings?

When the news of Scott Forstall leaving Apple in 2013 hit the wire, I was stunned as were others. Now another Major industry player has been tossed. This time it's Microsoft's Windows President Steven Sinofsky. The timing of these two events could very well be coincidental or maybe they're not. Could it be that Scott Forstall is willing to take on Apple via their long time enemy Microsoft? There's no doubt that the talented Forstall will end up with an Apple competitor at some point in time. It's really just a matter of when and which one he'll choose to get back at Apple for firing him in such an ugly public manner. There wasn't a nice departure letter from Forstall – Oh no. While it's pure speculation at this point in time, it's definitely not out of the question. Obviously wherever Forstall ends up in 2013 it's going to make headlines and cause some rather large waves in the industry. But if Forstall ever ended up at Microsoft, then the Apple-Microsoft war would dramatically escalate, in short order. Then again, others don't see Balmer giving up power to anyone, ever.

Apple Sued for Location Based Services on their iDevices

Texas based NovelPoint Tracking (NPT) has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple. The Company is claiming that Apple's iPhone 4S and other iDevices are infringing on their 6,442,485 patent titled "Method and Apparatus for an Automatic Vehicle Location, Collision Notification, and Synthetic Voice." There is a definite twist to this case and our report highlights that for you.  

Apple Wins Location Services & Key Multi-Touch Patents

Apple has won a number of multi-touch patents over the years and today they've been granted yet another one specifically relating to "channel scan logic." By having channel scan logic perform scanning functions, a sensor panel processor could be freed up to perform other tasks or be powered down to conserve power. A second granted patent that we briefly cover today relates to location based services which lists Scott Forstall as one of the inventors.

Apple Wins Patents for iDevice Screen Rotation & iPad 2 Design

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.

New iPhone 5S Propaganda Arises to Disturb Apple Sales

While DigiTimes is spreading the rumor this morning that there's a trial production of a new version of Apple's iPhone 5 being readied for a Q1 2013 launch, a more realistic assessment of this rumor surfaced from China Times News that presents it in the light of it being propaganda.