The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 36 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we briefly cover three specific granted patents as noted in our byline. We wrap up this week's granted patent report with our traditional listing of the remaining granted patents that were issued to Apple today.

Granted Patent: Locking and Unlocking a Mobile Device using Facial Recognition

Apple's newly granted patent covers their invention relating to locking and unlocking a mobile device using facial recognition. For details of this granted patent, see our original 2012 patent application report that covered facial recognition, the use of movement patterns, grip detectors and child locks.

Apple has since advanced their facial recognition technology in 2013 and 2014. While Apple's Touch ID that debuted with the iPhone 5S is likely to be the primary form of biometric security for Apple devices, they may at some point in time decide to use a combination of user biometrics to unlock varying devices.

Microsoft will introduce "Windows Hello" later this year with Windows 10 that could work with facial and voice recognition along with a user's fingerprint, alone or in combination.

Apple credits Lihua Zhao and Richard Tsai as the inventors of granted patent 8,994,499 which was originally filed in Q1 2011 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Granted Patent: Beacon-Based Geofencing

Apple's newly granted patent covers their invention relating to methods, program products, and systems for multi-tier geofence detection. In general, in one aspect, a mobile device can be configured to perform a task when the mobile device enters a geographic region. A boundary of the geographic region can be defined conceptually by a virtual "geofence." The mobile device enters the geographic region when it crosses the geofence. The crossing of a geofence can be determined by comparing the current location of the mobile device with data defining the location of the geofence.

In some implementations, the mobile device can determine that the mobile device is located in a third geographic region. The third geographic region can be specified using a third location accuracy and can include at least a portion of the first geographic region. The third geographic region can be defined by the known location of a beacon. As defined herein, a beacon is a short range communication device having a known or fixed location that provides a signal that can be detected by mobile devices within proximity of the beacon. An example of a beacon is a radio frequency (RF) beacon (e.g., Bluetooth.TM. low energy (BLE) beacon), infrared beacon or a radio frequency identifier (RFID) tag.

Apple has since advanced their intellectual property covering beacon technology. To review Apple's other beacon related inventions see our reports titled "Apple's new iOS 8 Location-Based Passbook," and "A New Apple iBeacon Indoor Mapping Patent sheds more light on Future Location Services within Buildings."

Apple credits Morgan Grainger, Robert Mayor and Ronald Huang as the inventors of granted patent 8,996,030 which was originally filed in Q1 2013 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Granted Patent: Cold Chamber Die Casting of Amorphous Alloys using Cold Crucible Induction Melting Techniques

Apple's newly granted patent relates to the use of liquid metal as it relates to systems and methods for casting amorphous alloys using an insertable and rotatable vessel in a non-movable induction heating structure. Apple's patent FIG. 7 noted below depicts an exemplary melting system.

There's a particular Apple fan base who loves to read everything about Apple's connection to liquid metal inventions. For those fans, here's a link to Apple's latest liquid metal related patent titled "Cold chamber die casting of amorphous alloys using cold crucible induction melting techniques."

The Remaining Patents granted to Apple Today

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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 Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Comments are reviewed daily from 5am to 7pm MST and sporadically over the weekend.