The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 41 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover an odd invention for Apple relating to grocery store bag tags that can count cumulative nutrition. Other patents cover an optical stylus and Apple Store bags. 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: Electronic Tag Transmissions of Custom-Order Nutritional Information

Apple's granted patent 9,640,088 covers their invention relating to an electronic tag encoding and transmitting data corresponding to a custom order. More specifically, the electronic tag can encode and transmit data corresponding to individual food items in a custom food order, and a receiving electronic device can use the data to update a cumulative nutrition variable (e.g., daily calorie count). Apple was first granted this patent back in July 2016.

Apple' patent FIG. 1A illustrates an example of a provision of an electronic tag with custom-order nutrition data; FIG. 4 is an overview of the system of the invention.

In Apple's initial granted patent, their patent claims focused on an electronic tag.

In Apple's latest granted patent, Apple's patent claims focus on all things related to "Nutrition Variables."

For instance, patent FIG. 1 states in-part: "Identifying a first nutrition variable for the first food item; identifying a second nutrition variable for the second food item, determining, at the electronic vendor device and using one or more processors, a nutrition variable based on the custom food order, the determining the nutrition variable including: adding the second nutrition variable to the first nutrition variable; or subtracting the second nutrition variable from the first nutrition variable; and encoding, at the electronic vendor device, an RFID electronic tag to store the nutritional variable.

Patent Claim #2: The method of claim 1, wherein: the modified first food item includes an addition of the second food item to the first food item; and determining the nutrition variable includes adding the first nutrition variable to the second nutrition variable.

Patent Claim #3: The method of claim 1, wherein: the second food item is to be excluded from the modified first food item; and determining the nutrition variable includes subtracting the second nutrition variable from the first nutrition variable.

Patent Claim #6: The method of claim 1, wherein the nutritional variable includes a quantity of calories. Review all of Apple's claims to understand all of the additions to this invention.

For the record, the first three engineers listed on this patent no longer work at Apple.

Other Granted Patents of Interest Today

One of Apple's original modern stylus patents was granted today and it dates back to November 2010 when naysayers said that Apple would never, ever make a tablet. The patent is titled "Optical Stylus."

Apple filed a patent for their Apple Store bags back in 2016. Apple's patent application 20160264304 covered environmental friendly design. One patent point #43 states: "In some embodiments, the corner reinforcement insert is formed of the same paper material as the rest of bag container (e.g., SBS paper having at least 50% post-consumer content (e.g., 60% post-consumer content, or greater than 60% post-consumer content)). This helps give it a low environmental impact similar to the rest of bag container thereby contributing to the low environmental impact of the bag overall.

Today Apple was granted a "design patent" for their Apple Store bags.

The Remaining Patents granted to Apple Today

Note: In order to see a clearer image of the list above, simply click on the image above to enlarge it. Some browsers may require that you click on the image and then a second click on the image to enlarge it fully.

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.