Santa, who is a secret agent of The US Patent and Trademark Office, officially dropped thirty-six shiny new granted patent certificates down Apple's chimney this morning at 12:05 A.M., according to Elf 101 who is Santa's official spokesperson. The Elf told Patently Apple that there were two special patents of interest. The first one was for the fourth generation iPod touch's design which may have been one of the last design patents for a product that lists the late Steve Jobs as one of the inventors. The second patent is for the MacBook Air which the late Steve Jobs proudly introduced back in 2008. Apple's patent, which isn't a design patent, covers many aspects of the MacBook Air's design. The MacBook Air is one of the best notebook designs on the market today. So much so that Intel and their band cloners have copied Apple's design form factor and called it the "Ultrabook."
Every once and a while Apple surprises us with a new invention on granted patent day because they filed the original patent filing under one of the engineer's name instead of "Apple Inc." Today, we're treated to a granted a patent that basically reveals that Apple may be thinking of introducing a new hybrid iDevice "Home Button." Since day one Apple had their classic Home Button and more recently introduced a hybrid button for muting audio and/or locking the orientation of your display as noted here. The proposed hybrid Home Button would essentially be constructed in such a manner so as to allow the user to lock the orientation of their iDevice display from the Home Button instead of a side button that exists today. It looks like Apple's reinventing the Home Button for iDevices and it sure makes sense. (Report Updated October 3.)
Over the years, Apple has dreamt up a revolutionary styled docking station, some smart docks, docks based on straight forward inductive charging methods and some with loopy inductive charging methods and yet we still have Apple's plain old boring dock. But it seems that Apple isn't done just yet with designing new docks and today we see that their design team went over the edge with a dozen or more docking systems. And this time around, most of them involve mating a power-clip to a docking station that could also end up being your MacBook or iMac. One of these designs may end up making it to market one of these days or they'll all simply end up in Jony Ive's toy box to rust with all of the other rejected ideas. C'mon Jony – pick a new docking system and get on with it already.
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of twenty-seven newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. While this morning's patent report covers seventeen patents in total, our main focus is placed on Apple winning two major iPod patents covering the user interface and the systems behind their media player. Steve Jobs is noted as one of the inventors of the iPod user interface patent which coversa hierarchically ordered graphical user interface including its "home" UI. Will Apple Legal use these fresh new patents to further protect their iDevices? Time will tell.
In a Patent Flash Report that we posted last week partially titled "Will the iPhone ever be Waterproof?" – we covered Apple's system for creating a water seal involving the use of both a sealing tape such as DuPont's Kapton and a soldering paste. In today's newly published patent application, Apple reveals that they're working on waterproofing a key device component using silicone rubber as a sealant. The patent also reveals that their solutions could eventually extend on through to the iPad and even the MacBook. Apple isn't there yet, but their definitely working on ways of better protecting us against devastating water damage so that we could keep on working, surfing and enjoying our devices without unnecessary disruption.
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of thirteen newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In our last granted patent report of the day we primarily focus on one of Apple's original iPhone patents that relate to editing file or file folder lists easily. Other granted patents issued today cover the technology behind Apple's second generation iPod Shuffle and how the iPhone was redesigned after 2007 so that it could double as an external hard drive.
On November 11, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals one of thenext chapters for Apple's mini media players such as the iPod shuffle and iPod nano. Apple's proposal is to add a speaker to the media players attachment clip. Apple points out how they may use a space age material in the design of the speaker that was once used in NASA's Apollo lunar module. I guess that Apple wants to give their fans a unique out-of-this-world experience. Oh those Crazy Ones of Cupertino are at it again.
On November 01, 2011, the US Patent and Trademark Office officially published three new Industrial Design Patent wins for Apple covering the new multi-touch iPod nano, the iPod shuffle and previous generation iPod nano. It's definitely a big iPod design day for Apple.
On October 20, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a variety of new iOS concept designs that will accommodate easier repairs.
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 14 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In our first granted patent report of the day we focus on three specific patents. The first relates to a sophisticated roaming point-of-sale system that Apple may use in their Apple Stores, the second is a patent relating to a Karaoke system that few have seen and the last relates to Apple's wireless keyboard design.
On June 23, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals various concepts behind a newly advanced directional audio interface. In one scenario, a specialized effect with a new kind of headset on would create an invisible spatial arc over the user's head that could control iPod menus through air gestures. Alternatives work with sensors in the iPod so that a user could map out movements to specific menu actions as our opening graphic illustrates. Apple's patent provides us with a mix of practical and very futuristic concepts on how we'll be able to control our iPod menus in the future through new audio interfaces. Concepts that will drive the competition mad once again.
Apple filed their "Apple" trademark in China this week which we noted as carrying an interesting twist. We noticed that Apple had, for the first time, emphasized fashion accessories and precious metals for jewelry, a watch and more in association with their brand name in a very succinct way. That just happens to fall in nicely with a new Apple patent application that was published this morning by USPTO that specifically points to using a next generation iPod nano as a fashion accessory. The unique aspect of this accessory is that it will implement a wild new dynamic screen saver system that could sense the environment it is in and in a chameleon-like fashion automatically change the screen saver accordingly. The patent even indirectly hints at a camera returning to the iPod nano which would support several on-going rumors.
