Granted Patent: iTunes and the iTunes Store

Apple's newly granted patent generally relates to iTunes and its integrated iTunes Store involving media presentation in a client-server environment.

Apple's patent is formally about improved graphical user interfaces and techniques for providing remote media content to users. According to one aspect, an application window display on a display device could expose a user not only to local media content but also to remote media content that is associated with the local media content. The local media content is stored locally, while the remote media content is stored remotely and available from a remote media server.

According to another aspect, the remote media content to be displayed can be determined in a manner that is dependent on a user interaction with the local media content. According to still a further aspect, the manner by which the remote media content is displayed could be dependent on the availability of remote media content at the remote media server. Apple's claim # 4 states that "a method as recited in claim 1, wherein the remote media source is a remote media store."

Apple credits Chris Bell, Alan Ward, Colin Meldrum and Timothy Martin as the inventors of Granted Patent 7,774,708, originally filed in Q2 2006.

Granted Patent: Apple's Aperture Software, System & Method

Apple's newly granted patent is about an automated RAW image processing method and system. A RAW image and metadata related to the RAW image are obtained from a digital camera or other source. The RAW image and the related metadata are automatically processed using an Operating System service of a processing device to produce a resulting image in an absolute color space. The resulting image is then made available to an application program.

Typically, the digital camera has an image pipeline that performs a demosaicing or de-Bayering process on the RAW image and transforms the image with a compressing algorithm to output a JPEG or other type of compressed file suitable for display and viewing. However, the RAW image captured by the digital camera could be uploaded to a computer, and computer software, such as Apple's Aperture.

Apple credits Mark Zimmer, David Hayward and Gabriel Marcu as the inventors of Granted Patent 7,773,127, originally filed in Q2 2007.

Granted Design Patents: Apple Keyboard, MacBook Air SuperDrive, iPod Pkg.

Apple has won several design patents today including the Apple keyboard with numeric keypad, the Macbook Air's SuperDrive, iPod retail packaging, two minor interface components and the MacBook Pro again. The MacBook Pro also won a design patent back in March 2010.

Steve Jobs was listed on the MacBook Pro, Apple Keyboard and iPod Packaging patents as one of the inventors.

Granted Patent: Computer Controlled Display Device

Apple has won a patent that pertains to a flexible display assembly that is easy to use. The design comes well after the iMac that was designed with a flex arm back in January 2002. One has to wonder if Apple could someday resurrect this concept in an alternate configuration like an iPad holder as shown in this May 2010 patent.

The main claim to this patent covers a computer controlled display device, comprising of the following: a flat panel display having an input for receiving display data; a base housing a computer; a moveable assembly extending from said flat panel display to said base. The moveable assembly has a cross-sectional area that is less than a cross-sectional area of a display structure of said flat panel display, wherein the moveable assembly is articulatable to provide at least four degrees of freedom for the display relative to the base. The assembly is configured to reduce the amount of user's force required for adjusting a viewing position of the flat panel display.

Apple credits Michael Hillman Frank Tsai, Michael McBroom, Daniel McBroom, Brian Sudderth, Bartley Andre, Christopher Stringer, Daniel Riccio, Sung Kim, Clifford Jue and Bryan White as the inventors of Granted Patent 7,773,371, originally filed in Q2 2007.

Other Noteworthy Granted Patents (GP) Published Today

GP - 7,773,041 – The original iPhone "Antenna System" (2006)

GP - 7,771,240 - Systems and methods for providing a trimless electronic device port

GP - 7,774,746 - Generating a format translator

Notice: Patently Apple presents only a brief summary of patents with associated graphic(s) for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application and/or Granted Patent is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent application and/or Issued Patent should be read in its entirety for further details. For additional information on any granted patent noted above that is not directly linked, simply feed the individual patent number(s) provided, minus the "GP" suffix (if present) into this search engine. About Comments: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit comments.

News Note: Liquidmetal Technologies, Inc., has entered into a Master Agreement with Apple. See our June 12 special report that covered liquid metal beofe the deal.