Apple Granted Patent: Manipulating 3D Objects

Apple has been granted a patent today for their invention relating to electronic devices with touch screen displays, and more particularly, to electronic devices with touch screen displays that display three-dimensional virtual objects.

Although the patent covers working with many types of 3D applications on iDevices, one of the main applications relate to video gaming. The gaming module may be used to play online games including multiplayer. A gaming icon is noted and highlighted in patent FIG. 4A below corresponding to FIG. 5A. Patently Apple first covered this patent back in January 2010 and you could review it for more patent figures and detail.

Apple credits Fabrice Robinet, Thomas Goossens and Alexandre Moha as the inventors granted patent 8,477,139 which was originally filed in Q3 2008 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Click here to review Apple's 60 patent claims.

Apple Granted Patent: Lightning Adapter for Electronic Devices

Apple has been granted one of their first patents relating to the new Lightning Connector in relation to an adapter.

Apple's patent FIG. 3 illustrates a Lightning plug connector that is included in an adapter.

Apple credits Jeffrey Terlizzi, Daniel Fritchman, Scott Krueger, Terry Tikalsky, Debra Sillman and Tony Ng as the inventors of granted patent 8,478,913 which was originally filed in Q and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office. To review today's 20 granted patent claims and details, see this patent.

Apple Granted Patent: Cooling System for iDevices

Apple has been granted a patent today for their invention relating to computing devices, and more specifically, to cooling devices for computing devices. For more details on Apple's invention you could review our original 2012 report.

Apple's patent FIG. 4 is a side elevation view of the cooling system for an iPhone, iPad, future gaming system, iPod touch and beyond.

Apple credits X as the inventors of this granted patent which was originally filed in Q2 2011 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office. To review today's granted patent claims and details, see US Number 8,477,490. In respect to cooling systems, also see our recent report titled "Apple, NEC, HTC in Race for Next Generation Cooling Systems for Smartphones and beyond."

Apple Granted Patent: Alignment of Digital Images & Motion for iDevice Cameras with HDR

On Apple's iPhone 5 promo-page that have a section about the device's camera: Take even better photos: The 8MP iSight camera on iPhone 5 has improved HDR capabilities for better color and tone and reduced motion blur. Even in low-light situations, the iSight camera catches beautifully detailed shots.

Technically speaking, Apple's invention generally relates to high dynamic range (HDR) imaging techniques and, more specifically, to techniques for aligning digital images acquired for an HDR imaging process. To review Apple's in-depth patent claims, see granted patent 8,478,076.

Apple Granted Patent: Smart Bezel

In one of our reports in 2010 we were first to cover Apple's initial smart bezel patent and then a year later, Apple's follow-up patent blew us away. Those were home grown patents. Today, the US Patent Office published another smart bezel patent, but this time around we find that it's really just one of many patents that Apple acquired from Kodak. Apple was granted this Kodak patent under number 8,477,114. The difference to this patent is that it could relate to a touch bezel in context with a future camera embodiment. For more information, see Apple's patent for more details.

Apple Granted Patent: Gestures for Touch Sensitive Input Devices

Apple has been granted a patent that generally relates to gesturing associated with touch sensitive devices. Apple's 2004 patent predates the iPhone and all touch related iDevices. The patent covers such things as floating menus, virtual knobs, the act of page turning for iBooks, virtual keyboards, virtual scroll wheels and more.

Technically, Apple's Patent Claim covers the following: "A method for manipulating graphical user interface (GUI) objects displayed on a touch sensing device, comprising: displaying a plurality of GUI objects on a multipoint touch screen of the touch sensing device, the multipoint touch screen providing a primary display for the touch sensing device; detecting one or more concurrent touches at different points on the multipoint touch screen, directly on or in proximity to the plurality of the displayed GUI objects; associating the one or more touches to a first GUI object from the displayed plurality of GUI objects in response to a relevance ranking of touch data associated with the one or more touches to each of the GUI objects; maintaining the association of the one or more touches with the first GUI object despite a presence of a second GUI object having a relevance ranking that exceeds the relevance ranking of the first GUI object if a difference between the relevance rankings of the second GUI object and the first GUI object is less than a predetermined threshold amount; and interpreting the multiple touches as a single gesture for performing a particular operation on the associated GUI object, the operation determined based on the associated GUI object."

Apple Granted Two Design Patents Today

Apple has been granted two design patents today covering the removal bottom panel of the Mac mini and a new retail store related "sign." Design patents don't provide detail, so we're unable to describe the "sign." Is it for the Apple Store or an In-Store display? It appears from the illustration that it's a glass enclosure.

The Remaining Patents that were granted to Apple Today

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.