Hong Kong IP Office Grants Apple 15 iPhone Design Patents
It's a big day for Apple design patents, as the Hong Kong IP Office has just officially granted Apple sixteen of them with fifteen dedicated to the iPhone 5 alone. The oddball design patent belongs to Apple's EarPods with Remote and Mic. The "Remote" aspect of that design which holds the volume controls won the patent. Apple's iPhone 5 designs cover their white and black models, an overview generic design and various others that cover individual parts of the iPhone 5.
Apple Granted a Design Patent for the White iPhone
Apple Granted a Design Patent for the Black iPhone
Apple's black iPhone 5 design was granted a patent. Noteworthy is the fact that this particular design presents a black and Grey backside rather than a two-tone black design. Was this done to simply distinguish the center backside where the Apple logo is presented or is Apple contemplating a new two-tone backside design?
Although it's more than likely the former, the fact is that we can't assume to know what Apple was thinking here regarding this design feature because design patents simply don't provide us with any distinguishable detailing to verify this feature.
Apple Granted a Total of 15 iPhone Design Patents
A third design covering the iPhone 5 is a line art style that shows the design in a generic layout without color or distinguishable shading.
The remainder of the iPhone 5 designs only present various aspects of the design that are being singled out for protection under the law. For example, the design patent below focuses on the steel band around the iPhone 5. The band is the noted feature being highlighted and what is being protected by this separate design patent. Our cover graphic is another variant of this design. As you can see below, the remainder of the design is noted as a dotted-line outline of the iPhone to simply support a visual as to what is actually being patented in solid lines.
Whether Huawei's new Ascend P6 now violates Apple's patented design is unknown at this time.
Apple Granted a Design Patent for the "Remote" in Context with EarPods
A Note for Tech Sites covering our Report: We ask tech sites covering our report to kindly limit the use of our graphics to that of our first and/or last graphic. Thanking you in advance for your cooperation.
Overview of Apple's Newly Granted Design Patents
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