Apple Granted 34 Patents Covering a Unique Touch Gesture with Visible Points, a Store-within-a-Store iPhone Display & More
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 34 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we focus on one patent regarding a unique touch gesture that provides a user with visible points of interaction. Apple points out in their patent that if a user tries to place a cursor at a specific point (e.g., between two letters in a word in a text message) on a touch screen and the cursor is smaller than the touch area, it can be difficult to accurately position the cursor without being able to see exactly where the cursor is on the touch screen with respect to the touch. The same problem can exist for other types of touch objects such as a stylus, brush, or other objects that have an end that can block the point of interaction from the user's view. Today's granted patent provides a solution for that. We conclude this week's granted patent report with our traditional listing of the remaining granted patents that were issued to Apple today.
Apple Granted Patent for a Unique Touch Gesture with a Visible Point of Interaction on a Touchscreen
Apple has been granted a patent today for their invention relating to a system and method for interacting with a touch screen, and more particularly, to implementing touch gestures having one or more visible points of interaction on the touch screen so as to allow a user to visually track the point(s) of interaction on a touch screen while providing touch input.
In particular, a unique touch configuration can be detected on the touch screen indicating that the user wishes to display one or more visible points of interaction on the touch screen to be used as a visual reference while performing various gestures on the touch screen. Displaying one or more visible points of interaction allows the user to perform touch input such as gestures on the touch screen with improved precision. The visible point of interaction can assist the user in precision drawing as noted below in FIG. 2A.
As shown in FIG. 2a, when the touch screen detects the pinched configuration, the system can display a visible point of interaction 208 at a point in proximity to the first finger and second finger. In this example, the visible point of interaction 208 can be a dot as shown in FIG. 2a.
In other examples, the visible point of interaction can also be any other shape or icon, such as a circle, a pointer, or a cursor. As illustrated in FIG. 2a, the point of interaction can be displayed in proximity to the fingers instead of directly below the fingers. As such, it can be visible to the user to allow the user to see the point of interaction while the user continuously interacts with the touch screen by, for example, moving their fingers. For more on this, see Apple's patent.
Apple credits Richard Dinh, Scott Myers, Daniel Jarvis and Kelvin Kwong as the inventors of granted patent 8,842,088 which was originally filed in Q3 2012 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Apple Granted 7 Design Patents Today
Apple was granted 7 design patents today by the US Patent and Trademark Office. The main designs cover a Store-within-a-Store Display (D713,658) and two designs for Apple EarPod packaging for Europe (D713,738 and D713,739) as illustrated below.
Last week's granted patent report covered design wins for the iPad Smart Case and Lightning connector and today Apple has been granted yet another round of such designs under numbers D713,848 and D713,796. The other design patents that aren't illustrated today include a display screen UI under number D713,855 and a cords and packaging design under D713,740.
The Remaining Patents granted to Apple Today
One More Thing
Apple updated their Developer website this morning with their first round of iOS distribution numbers showing us that iOS 8 is already on 46% of iDevices in the market today.
This is likely to ramp up sharply by the end of the year – if they clear up the initial bugs that many are complaining about, that is. And I'm sure they will.
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