Light-Transmissive Logo Coming to Apple's iPod
On April 10, 2008, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's patent application titled Invisible, Light-Transmissive Display System. Apple's patent generally relates to device display systems, and more particularly to invisible, light-transmissive display systems that become visible when illuminated from behind. The patent illustrates the technology being used in notebooks and the iPod. In the case of the iPod, the technology will allow the Apple logo and brand name "iPod" to be illuminated in future iterations of their popular MP3 player.
Apple's patent FIG. 6A shown above is a view of an iPod with a surface logo in an illuminated state. Apple's patent FIG. 12 also shown above, represents various indicator formations: 1202 a stop indicator, 1204 a play indicator, 1206 for pause, 1208 for fast forward, 1210 for rewind, 1212 for skip forward, 1214 for skip backward, 1216 for return, 1218 for section backup, 1220 for section forward and 1222 for "on" or "enabled" indicators. Apple's patent doesn't clarify which device(s) would actually use such indicators. Click on patent figure to enlarge.
Apple credits the following engineers for patent application 20080084404 originally filed in July 2006: Andre; Bartley K.; (Menlo Park, CA) ; Coster; Daniel; (San Francisco, CA) ; Howarth; Richard; (San Francisco, CA) ; de Iuliis; Daniele; (San Francisco, CA) ; Ive; Jonathan P.; (San Francisco, CA) ; Kerr; Duncan; (San Francisco, CA) ; Khosla; Jivan Kumar; (Cupertino, CA) ; Nishibori; Shin; (San Francisco, CA) ; Rohrbach; Matthew; (San Francisco, CA) ; Satzger; Doug B.; (Menlo Park, CA) ; Seid; Calvin; (Palo Alto, CA) ; Stringer; Christopher; (Portola Valley, CA) ; Whang; Eugene; (San Francisco, CA) ; Zorkendorer; Rico; (San Francisco, CA).
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