The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 54 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover patents for a new iPhone dock with Siri and another relating to the iPhone determining that a driver has exited their vehicle and to automatically disconnect from CarPlay and return to full functionality. Apple also won six design patents today and we highlight two of them relating to earphones and the iPad. As always, 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: iPhone Smart Dock with Siri

Apple's newly granted patent covers their invention relating to a smart dock for communicating with a portable electronic device to activate a voice recognition mode.

Apple's patent FIG. 1 noted below illustrates a simplified perspective view of a dock #100 according to an embodiment of the present invention that activates the voice recognition mode of the iPhone; FIG. 4 illustrates a flow diagram of a process #400 usable by the dock to receive voice input from a user and to provide audio output generated by the iPhone.

For more details about the dock providing wireless charging and more you could check out Patently Apple's original 2013 patent report here.

Apple's granted patent 9,711,160 was originally filed in Q2 2012 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Granted Patent: Determining Exit from a Vehicle

Apple's newly granted patent covers their invention relating to methods and mobile devices for determining an exit from a vehicle. Sensors within an iPhone can be used to determine when the user is in a vehicle that is driving. The same or different sensors can be used to identify a disturbance (e.g., loss of communication connection from mobile device to a car computer). After the disturbance, an exit confidence score can be determined at various times, and compared to a threshold. A determination of the exit of the user can be determined based on the comparison of the exit confidence score to the threshold.

A vehicle exit can refer to the condition where a user has been driving for a while, and then exits the vehicle for a different transportation mode, such as walking (even if just for a split second before coming to rest a different location outside the vehicle).

The determination of the exit can be used for various functions. For example, a determination of an exit can be used to determine a parking location or determine whether navigation instruction mode needs to be switched, e.g., from a driving mode to a walking mode. A determination of an exit can be used to change a user interface, performing communication tasks, or various other functions.

For more details, see Apple's granted patent 9,712,977 which was filed in Q1 2016 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Apple's Key Granted Design Patents

Apple was granted 6 design patents today with two worth noting. The first is titled "Earpiece" (D792,378 - Beats) while the second is titled "Portable Display with Cover" (D792,393) which relates to an iPad with its foldable cover.

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. Those using abusive language or behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus.