Today, December 11, 2012, the US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 37 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. which includes two design wins.
Apple Granted Two Design Patents
The US Patent and Trademark Office have officially granted Apple two new design patents today. The first covers Apple's classy iPhone-4 design which first introduced a full glass back panel and surrounding stainless steel band. The second design win of the day covers the icon for Apple's iCloud services.
Apple Granted 35 Utility Patents
Over and above their two newly granted design wins, Apple was been granted 35 utility patents. Some of the notables within this group include connectors with embedded antennas and one that relates to location services in connection with media items. The latter patent credits Scott Forstall, Apple's former VP of iPhone software, as one of the inventors.
Another noteworthy granted patent issued to Apple today is titled "Soft handoff in OFDMA system." This 4G LTE related patent was one of many patents that Apple acquired from Canada's Nortel over the summer.
For public record, the full list of Apple's 35 newly granted utility patents are presented below.
It's Granted Patent Day
Readers should be aware that every Tuesday the US Patent and Trademark Office publish Apple's Granted Patents. Granted patents are approved patent applications that Apple applied for months or even years ago. In the vast majority of cases, "granted patents" aren't covering any new kind of technology on the day the patent is being granted. New Apple technologies are generally revealed on Thursdays by the US Patent Office in the form of published patent applications. Some Mac sites confuse this process by making claims and presenting bylines on Tuesday that insinuate that Apple has just revealed a new technology or process. In 99% of cases, this is simply untrue and readers should be made aware of this fact. Known exceptions would include patents that were recently acquired by Apple or a domestic and/or foreign patent application that Apple had never presented in the US before under its own brand name.
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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