Apple Wins a Major Fitness Center Related App

Apple has won a major sport related patent pertaining to a fitness center app. Apple's original public publication of this patent application only came to light this past April. You could review our report titled "Apple is designing a Great New Fitness Center App" for more of the finer details. The patent covers such matters such as in-gym motivation, post workout motivation, social networking and smart equipment.

Apple's patent FIG. 4 shown below is a schematic view of functions available for introducing a potential new customer to a fitness center.

Apple's First of Twenty-Two Patent Claims: A method for interfacing with a fitness center, the method comprising: introducing a user to a particular fitness center via an integrated application of a portable electronic device, wherein the user is a potential new customer of the particular fitness center; after the introducing, providing incentive, via the integrated application, for the user to join the particular fitness center; in response to the user joining the particular fitness center as a result of the incentive, providing, via the integrated application, in-gym motivation for motivating the user to work out at the particular fitness center; and providing, via the integrated application, post-workout motivation to encourage the user to actively return to the particular fitness center, wherein at least one of the providing incentive, the providing in-gym motivation, and the providing post-workout motivation comprises connecting the user, via the integrated application, with a calendar server of the particular fitness center for allowing the user to perform a scheduling function with the particular fitness center.

Apple credits Stanley Ng and Michael Hailey as the inventors of this patent which was originally filed in Q4 2009.

Apple Wins a Patent for Photo Booth

Apple has received their first Granted Patent relating to their entertaining Photo Booth application that works with both OS X and iOS (though restricted to the iPad at the moment). Apple's Photo Booth application allows a user to take snapshots of themselves and/or friends via Apple's iSight camera built into their various devices. The user is then able to use the application's easy-to-use distortion filters to create entertaining photo-effects that are fun, artsy and really bizarre at times. Some of the effect-filters included in the application are titled Thermal, Mirror, X-Ray, Twirl and Stretch.

Apple's First Claim: A computer-implemented method, comprising: providing for display a mosaic having a first cell and a second cell, the first cell displaying a video with a first visual effect, the second cell displaying the video with a second visual effect, the second visual effect being different from the first visual effect; receiving a selection of the first cell and the second cell, the selection including a drag and drop input that drags the first cell and drops the first cell onto the second cell; creating a third visual effect, the third visual effect including both the first visual effect and the second visual effect; and capturing at least one frame of the video; and applying the third visual effect to the captured frame of the video.

Apple credits Senior VP of iPhone Software Scott Forstall and team members Jean-Pierre Ciudad, Luke Bellandi, Gregory Christie, Richard Dellinger, Mike Matas, Erica Misaki, Kevin Tiene, Marcel Van OS and Steve Lemay as the inventors of this Photo Booth patent which was originally filed in Q4 2005.

Apple Wins Two New Design Patents

Apple has been granted two design patents today which cover their iOS YouTube Icon & Apple Branded Battery Charger.

Apple credits Freddy Anzures and Stephen Lemay for the YouTube Icon Design Patent while crediting VP Industrial Design Jonathan Ive and team members Jody Akana, Bartley Andre, Jeremy Bataillou, Daniel Coster, Daniele De Iuliis, Evans Hankey, Richard Howarth, Duncan Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Peter Russell-Clarke, Douglas Satzger, Christopher Stringer, Eugene Whang and Rico Zorkendorfer as the inventors of the Apple Battery Charger Design Patent.

Final Patent Round-Up

Over and above the granted patents that were specifically reported on today, we present you with links to all of the other granted patents in our Final Patent Round-Up as follows:

Apple's patent 8,085,932 titled "Secure distribution of data or content using keyless transformation" relates to distribution of data or content using a cryptographic system, and more specifically to a keyless cryptographic system.

Apple's patent 8,086,332 titled "Media delivery system with improved interaction" relates to media devices and, more particularly, to portable media devices, such as portable media players, that receive accessory devices.

Apple's patent 8,086,535 titled "Decoupling rights in a digital content unit from download" generally relates to digital content protection and, more particularly, to cryptographic techniques for obtaining a right in a legitimate copy of a digital content unit without downloading the copy.

Apple's patent 8,086,604 titled "Universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system" is generally related to a computer-human interface for quickly and easily retrieving desired information in a computer system. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a universal interface which uses a plurality of heuristic algorithms to identify an item of information (e.g., document, application or Internet web page) in response to at least one information descriptor.

Other granted patents published today include: Resonant oscillator circuit with reduced startup transients; System and method for dilation for glyph rendering; Accessing accelerometer data; Event-based setting of process tracing scope; and finally, Memory controller with loopback test interface.

Notice: 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 Comments: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit comments.

Here are a Few Sites covering this Original Report: MacSurfer, Twitter, Facebook, Apple Investor News, Google Reader, Macnews, iPhone World Canada, MarketWatch, iDownloadBlog, Foss Patents Twitter, Techmeme, and more.