Granted Design Patents: Cover Flow for a Display Screen

Apple has been granted yet another patent for Cover Flow. Apple credits Imran Chaudhri as the sole inventor of Granted Patent D624,932 originally filed in Q2 2009. Apple has won several recent Cover Flow related patents which we've covered in reports dating back to August 2009, April 2010 and February 2010 respectively.

Closely held Mirror Worlds, founded by Yale University computer-science Professor David Gelernter, sued Apple in 2008, claiming that Apple's iPod music device, iPhone and Mac computers infringed its patents for a way documents are displayed on a computer screen. Mirror Worlds has won their case against Apple who is now appealing.

Plaintiff Mirror Worlds LLC alleged that Defendant Apple, Inc. infringed on U.S. Patent Nos. 6,006,227 and 6,638,313 B1 entitled "Document Stream Operating System" and 6,725,427 B2 entitled "Document Stream Operating System with Document Organizing and Display Facilities," 6,768,999 B2 entitled "Enterprise, Stream-Based Information Management System." The trial focused on the Spotlight, Time Machine and Cover Flow features. The two Mirror Worlds patent figures noted above were presented to the Court as part of their evidence in the patent infringement case against Apple.  

Incidentally, Apple has been granted a patent for Time Machine today under patent 7,809,688.

Apple's patent abstract states that the patent is about systems and methods for generating incremental backups. "In one implementation a method is provided. The method includes receiving, while a current view is displayed in a user interface, a first user input requesting that a history view associated with the current view be displayed. The history view is displayed in response to the first user input, the history view including at least a first visual representation of an earlier version of the current view, the earlier version including a first element. A second user input is received while the history view is displayed. The second user input requests that the current view be modified according to the earlier version, at least with regard to the first element."

Apple credits Pavel Cisler, Steve Ko, Kevin Tiene, Mike Matas, Gregory Christie, Gene Ragan, Robert Ulrich, Scott Forstall and Marcel van Os as the inventors of th granted patent entitled "Managing Back of Content" originally filed in Q3 2006.

A secondary granted patent that was issued today may also relate to Time Machine. Granted patent 7,809,687 titled " Searching a Backup Archive" was filed at the same time as the Time Machine patent (Q3 2006).

Apple's patent abstract states that the patent is about search systems and methods. "In one implementation, a method is provided. A current view of a search application is displayed in a user interface. The current view of the search application includes a search result including one or more elements. A first user input is received while the current view of a search application is displayed. The first user input requests that a history view associated with the current view of the search application be displayed. The history view includes search results based on a search of system data from an archive. The history view is displayed in response to the first user input, the history view including search results having a first item not present in the one or more elements."

Apple credits Pavel Cisler; Pavel, Yan Arrouye, Dominic Giampaolo, Dave Lyons and Peter McInerney as the inventors of this patent.

Granted Design Patent: Magic Mouse

Apple has won their second design win for the Magic Mouse this year. Their first win was published in Europe back in January of this year.

Apple credits CEO Steve Jobs, Bartley Andre, Daniel Coster, Daniele De Iuliis, Evans Hankey, Richard Howarth, Jonathan Ive, Duncan Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Rohrbach, Peter Russell-Clarke, Douglas Satzger, Christopher Stringer, Eugene Wang, and Rico Zorkendorfer as the inventors of Granted Patent D624,917 originally filed in Q2 2008.

Incidentally, Apple has also been awarded a patent for the technology behind the Magic Mouse today under patent 7,808,479. The patent that is officially entitled "Ambidextrous Mouse" is noted below in various patent figures.

Apple credits Steve Hotelling and Brian Huppi as the inventors of this granted patent which was originally filed in Q3 2003.

Other Notable Granted Patents (GP) Published Today

GP - 7,808,521 – Apple was granted a patent titled "Multimedia Conference Recording and Manipulation Interface" that likely plays a role in Apple's video calling app called FaceTime.

GP - 7,809,949 – Apple has been granted an iPhone related patent titled "Configuration of a Computing Device in a Secure Manner."

GP - 7,810,047 – Apple has been granted an iPod touch related patent titled "List item Layouts System and Method."

GP - 7,809,207 - Pre-Processing Method and System for Data Reduction of Video Sequences and Bit Rate Reduction of Compressed Video Sequences using Spatial Filtering

Notice: Patently Apple presents only a brief summary of patents with associated graphic(s) for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application and/or Granted Patent is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent application and/or Issued Patent should be read in its entirety for further details. About Comments: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit comments.