Apple Granted Three Major Hardware Design Patents

Apple has been granted three major hardware industrial design patents today covering the iMac, Cinema Display and their MacBook Air. This is Apple's second win this year alone for the MacBook Air. The first win was issued to Apple in March.

Apple Wins Patent for Displaying Digital Images on a Display

Apple has received a Granted Patent that generally relates to displaying digital images on a display. Apple's granted patent incorporates a series of co-pending patents including "Displaying Digital Images using Groups, Stacks, and Version Sets" and" Viewing Digital Images on a Display Using a Virtual Loupe. Apple has used these patents to support the "Photo" app on the iPad. This patent will protect Apple's methodology and appearance on the iPad. Competitors Beware.

Apple's patent background states that digital photographers may use a software system in managing and organizing digital images. Often, digital photographers may need to display a large number of digital images on a display. The number of digital images that the digital photographer wishes to visually represent on the display may be too large or unwieldy for each of the digital images to be visually represented on the display unobstructed. Consequently, there is a need in the art to improve the display, management, and organization of digital images shown on a display.

The patent covers the photo management system that is found in iPhoto and Aperture. The foundation of this patent extends to the iPad.

Apple credits Randy Ubillos, Laurent Perrodin; Laurent and Dan Waylonis as the inventors of this patent which was originally filed in Q4 2004 and refilled in Q1 2010. It was published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Apple Wins a Patent for a Future 3D Apple TV Remote

Apple has received a Granted Patent relating to a future 3D Apple TV Remote or "Wand."

Apple's granted patent covers a media system may include an electronic device, a screen, and a wand. The user may interact with one or more media applications implemented on the electronic device using the wand. The wand may include any suitable components for providing instructions to the electronic device. For example, the wand may include a motion detection component providing outputs reflecting the movements of the wand to the electronic device.

As another example, the wand may include an input mechanism for receiving inputs from the user, and operative to provide the received inputs to the electronic device. The input mechanism may include any suitable input mechanism, including for example an input mechanism operative to detect movements of a user's finger (e.g., a touch screen, touchpad or touch strip).

When an object is displayed by the electronic device, the user may zoom the display to access a more detailed view of the object. The user may provide the zooming instruction using any suitable approach. In some embodiments, the user may provide a zooming input using the input mechanism of the wand. For example, the user may slide a finger across the input mechanism to direct the electronic device to zoom the displayed object. If several objects are displayed and zoomed, the electronic device may change the position of the objects on the screen to maintain the ordering of the objects.

These are features that today's Apple TV don't provide. Other details about a future 3D wand could be reviewed in another Apple patent application that we covered in December 2010.

Apple credits Duncan Kerr and Nicholas King as the inventors of this patent which was originally filed in Q4 2007 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Apple Wins Patent Harnessing Power through Electromagnetic Induction Utilizing Printed Coils

Apple has been granted a patent for systems that harness power through electromagnetic induction. In today's granted patent we see that Apple is exploring ways of building a miniature electromagnetic induction system right into future portable devices as a means of extending battery life.

Apple's system 200 that is noted below in patent FIG. 1 could be incorporated into an electronic devices such as an iPod, iPad or iPhone. For more details you could check out our March 2011 patent report titled "Future Apple Hardware to Harness the Power of Magnetic Induction."

Apple's patent states that "when a user shakes the system or when the user walks or runs while holding the device. The movement of the one or more magnets may create an electromotive force (e.g., a voltage) across the printed coils, and this force may be used to generate electric power."

Apple's patent FIG. 2 is a schematic view of an illustrative electromagnetic induction system; FIG. 3A is a perspective view of an illustrative, partially exploded circuit board.

Apple credits Gloria Lin, Pareet Rahul, Michael Rosenblatt, Taido Nakajima, Bruno Germansderfe and Samuitro Dasgupta as the inventors of this patent which was originally filed in Q3 2009 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Final Patent Round-Up

Over and above the granted patents that were specifically reported on today, we present you with links to all of the other granted patents in our Final Patent Round-Up as follows:

8,195,141 Remote control of electronic devices: In December 2009 we covered this technology in our report titled "A Future iPhone will Control Your Desktop Remotely."

8,196,214 Method and apparatus for securing content using encryption with embedded key in content

8,196,153 Method and apparatus for associating device drivers via a device tree

8,196,043 User interface for presenting media information

8,195,864 Methods and apparatus for bridged data transmission and protocol translation in a high serialized data system

8,195,768 Remote slide presentation

8,195,622 Method and apparatus for simplifying the decoding of data

8,195,393 Analyzing and consolidating track file data

8,194,890 Detecting and processing button press events for performing electronic device operations

8,194,730 Efficient use of storage in encoding and decoding video data streams

8,194,410 Printed circuit board sensor mounting and alignment

8,194,088 Selective composite rendering

8,194,031 Backlight control of electronic device

8,192,815 Methods and systems for forming a dual layer housing

8,192,234 Audio connector control system

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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