According to Obama's designee, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, said in a statement today that "After carefully weighing policy considerations, including the impact on consumers and competition, advice from agencies, and information from interested parties, I have decided to allow" the import ban to proceed.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 54 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In our second and last granted patent report of the day, we briefly cover a few patents covering Apple's manufacturing and finishing processes related to such iDevices as the iPhone and iPad. Most of Apple's major product introductions for these latest iDevices include a video presentation from Apple's Senior VP of Industrial Design Jony Ive. These presentations are classic as they illustrate Apple's passion for design and the lengths that they'll go to get every last detail just right. Ive's latest presentations include the iPhone 5S and 5C. Lastly, our report briefly covers Apple's original iPhone voicemail system patent.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 54 newly granted utility patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we focus on a series of important touch and multitouch patents that were originally filed for between 2007 and 2010. The patents cover everything from the original iPod clickwheel through to touch displays using LTPS which is a class of display Apple wishes to use for the next generation of Retina displays. Touch and multitouch displays are cornerstone technologies behind the mobile device revolution that Apple reinvented in 2007 with the introduction of the iPhone. Our report concludes with four new design patent wins for Apple and a full list of the remaining patents that were granted to Apple today.

Prior to the launch of the iPhone 5S we posted a report titled "Apple Passing on a larger iPhone Display still a Head Scratcher." The Market en masse had shifted to larger display smartphones with Apple being the odd man out. Rumors of Apple preparing to shift to a 4.8" display in 2014 began to emerge as early as June of this year. A new rumor emerged once again today renewing the fervor for a larger sized iPhone display by financial firm Jefferies.

Last month DoCoMo had a total of 61.8 million subscribers followed by KDDI with 39 million and SoftBank with 34 million. Yet adding the iPhone so late in the quarter has apparently hurt DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile phone carrier, who reportedly lost the most subscribers on record this month.

The US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's latest trademark filings for iOS 7 versions of Safari and Voice Memo icons. The previous voice memo icon design was represented by a large microphone which had to go under Ive's new flat look for iOS 7. Apple's legal team also applied for the same two icon design trademarks in Hong Kong China this past week.

October 05, 2013: The late Steve Jobs was one of the greatest CEO's of our time. Though for my generation, he was so much more. He was an inspirational force, a rebel with a cause, and definitely one of the "craziest ones" of our time who indeed made a difference in how we use computers and mobile devices in our daily lives today. It's so very hard to believe that he's been gone two years. I still miss his presence, showmanship and humor. On this day, we respectfully remember the late, great Steve Jobs.

In Time magazine's assessment of over 1,000 notebooks on the market, Apple came out shining by making a sweep of the top three overall notebooks segments for 2013. Ben Taylor writes: "Maybe you're a tech geek, and you want the best machine money can buy, regardless of whether it will fit into your briefcase or cost two months-worth of rent. So, which laptops achieved the highest scores overall? With low weights, solid performance specs, crisp displays, and universal praise from the experts, Apple's two Retina Display MacBook Pros and recent MacBook Air emerged as the gold-, silver-, and bronze-medal winners among our pool of 1,000+ laptops."

Millions of people have spoken with Apple's Siri, but until now no one knew that her real name is Susan Bennet. No one still knows that for sure, and Apple won't confirm it, but CNN found audio forensic experts that back up the Atlanta-based voice actress's claims.

A new report out of Kolkata India today states that "Apple may soon be slugging it out in the trenches with Samsung and other smartphone rivals as India country head Maneesh Dhir and telecom business chief Sanjay Kaul seek a rapid increase in the pace of growth in India, a market that it has neglected until recently."

On September 25, well ahead of the pack, we published a report titled "Is Samsung's Smartwatch Sales Headed for Disaster? In that report we noted that a Samsung official had reportedly stated that the new Galaxy Gear lacked something special. We also noted that Samsung was spooked by Apple's wristband computer patent and rushed to get ahead of Apple on this front. We simply saw this as a disastrous move on Samsung's part and we're evidently not alone. The New York Times and the Verge are now on record slamming Samsung's smartwatch called Gear. Is Samsung's Gear headed for a disaster? It sure looks like it at this point in time.

In July we reported that Apple was considering a huge shift to IGZO displays in 2014. Korean Sources stated at that time that Apple had decided to expand the application of IGZO display to future MacBooks. Today Sharp made an announcement that IGZO displays are ready for notebooks.

Now that Apple has introduced their new fingerprint scanner technology on the iPhone 5S as Touch ID, does it really surprise anyone that that a wave of new Android phones are racing to market in 2014 to copy this smartphone feature? Well, it shouldn't and according to a new report by USA Today, the president of the FIDO Alliance has stated that consumers "will be able to choose from the latest Android models that will come equipped with a biometric sensor capable of letting him swipe his fingerprint to access a wide range of his online accounts," over the next six months. Report Update Oct. 14, 2013.

At every opportunity, we've tried to expose Samsung in the light of a copycat manufacturer and dirty trickster. In the past, we've had the courage to challenge Samsung's blustering claims of blockbuster sales and have been proven correct. Some say we're too hard on Samsung and yet we're the only Apple site that covers Samsung patents in all fairness. If they file for an innovative idea, we try to cover them. But that has nothing to do with us hammering them when they copy Apple's designs and steal or "infringe" Apple's patents. These creeps have tried to invalidate key Apple patents and have repeatedly failed in the US. Yet they kept pushing until they got a German court to invalidate one of Apple's patents that they (Samsung and Google) desperately need to defeat because pinch and zoom and other key Apple inventions define multitouch functionality on mobile devices like no other. So today I applaud the CNN/Fortune Apple 2.0 blog for posting a historical listing of Samsung's dirty trickery for the record. Report Updated 12 PM PST

On October 3, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a series of 13 original patent applications from Apple. Once again there were no knock-out patent filings published today like a smartwatch or fingerprint scanner, but there were a few invention enhancement patents worth noting. One relates to enhancing future iDevice protective mechanisms that will assist iDevices in free fall. Another enhancement covers the iPhone's active noise cancellation function. Today's patent application summary report provides you with specifics behind Apple's key invention enhancements while providing you with links to a number of other interesting patents published today that relate to matters such as cryptographic operations and enhanced velocity estimations for touch inputs and much more.

In June we reported that Apple's iPad Web Traffic Lead had leapt to Over 84%. That's most certainly a great stat and yet you have to wonder what are iPad users really doing with their iPads? Apple's CEO Tim Cook is on record as making "usage" of iDevices a priority over "market share." Our report takes a quick peek at a new study's finding as to what users are actually doing on their iPads and the findings were a little surprising.

Once again rumors abound as to whether Apple will be able to introduce the iPad mini 2 in volume for the holiday season. Reuters who regularly runs negative Apple news, is now claiming that their sources are saying that the iPad mini 2 will only be available in limited quantities for the holiday season. Reuters pointed to one possible reason for the production problems being that there were "delays in Apple's certification of panel producers, which were given strict power-saving requirements." Apple's hot iPad mini 2 with a Retina Display has garnered a lot of press over the year that has focused on manufacturing problems. Our report gives you a run down on the issues and specifically to those surrounding Apple's focus on power-savings.

Apple is definitely on a high profile hiring spree of late. They began with Ex-Yves Saint Laurent CEO Paul Deneve to work on "Special Projects" and just hired Ben Shaffer from Nike's "innovation Kitchen" fame to join this group. Now enters cable industry vet and long-time CableLabs exec Jean-François Mulé who has recently joined Apple in the role of engineering director. It's interesting to note that CableLabs marketing slogan is "Revolutionizing Cable Technology." I would guess it's safe to say that Apple tapped Mulé for his expertise in revolutionizing the cable experience for an Apple TV related project - though time will tell.

Last month we took a look at various angles to future Apple gaming and there's been ongoing buzz about iOS game controllers coming to market soon. A new gaming controller from Logitech was shown on @evleaks twitter site earlier this afternoon as first noted by TechCrunch. As noted above, Logitech's idea is simple and yet it could be quite advanced if game developers take advantage of the iPhone's touch screen for added game menus and a place for gamer supplies like ammo, health and so forth. Whether the controller will work with all iPhones or only the new iPhone 5S with its 64 bit processor is unknown at this time.

In April we pointed out that the Fair Trade Commission opened an investigation into Samsung's dirty trickster tactics of paying part-time workers to use multiple propaganda accounts on the internet to promote Samsung phones and attack products from its rivals. Now some great investigative reporting by Ars Technica's Ron Amadeo shows that Samsung may have "artificially boosted the US Note 3's benchmark scores" with a special, high-power CPU mode that kicks in when the device runs a large number of popular benchmarking apps. Can you believe these guys? Even Apple's VP of Marketing Phil Schiller jumped on his Twitter account to comment on this.

It's being reported today that Apple and Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry) are testing a new service to help sell products in China by directly shipping them from plants in Zhengzhou China to the domestic market. Apple has been aggressively trying to expand its presence in China but needs logistical support to accomplish this goal. Foxconn will be able to assist Apple on this front while providing them with needed after-sale maintenance services in China.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 38 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover Apple's "radial menus" invention that was designed for both the Mac and iDevices like the iPhone. We also cover Apple's patent regarding a secure protocol for encrypting files that stems from the military and close out our report with a full list of the patents that were granted to Apple today but not covered in our reports.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a newly granted patent for Apple Inc. today relating to their Shanghai Store's Glass Panel Design. In 2010 Apple launched a major effort to expand sales in China by opening a new store in Shanghai as noted in our graphic above. Today, Apple was also granted two design patents.