On December 4, 2014, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a new stylus invention relating to an advanced signal detection and demodulation architecture. For a company that supposedly has no interest in a stylus it's amazing that this year alone they've applied for ten new patents covering this type of device. It's evident that Apple has plans of introducing a next-gen smart pen at some point in the future. It's just a matter of time.

While Apple's late CEO Steve Jobs wasn't a big fan of the "dumb stylus" of yesteryear when he first introduced the iPhone back in 2007, he knew that one day the technology would give rise to an advanced iPen that would finally provide iDevice users with true to life writing capabilities on an iPhone or iPad. While Microsoft, Samsung and others have offered digital pens for many years, Apple has been quietly working on an advanced digital pen. Their R&D in this area has been extensive as you'll find reviewing our smart pen archives. Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published yet another patent application from Apple regarding a digital pen. This invention adds dynamic visual indicators such as a battery indicator and more. Apple also hints that they could add a projector to this new pen. As one of Apple's longest standing projects to date, there's still hope that one of these days we'll see what a smart pen could really do.

On September 18, 2014, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a series of three patent applications from Apple that reveal their ongoing work on developing a future advanced stylus. For the record, Apple now has 30 patent applications on advancing a stylus on record.

While Apple's late CEO Steve Jobs wasn't a big fan of the "dumb stylus" of yesteryear when he first introduced the iPhone back in 2007, he knew that one day the technology would give rise to an advanced iPen that would finally provide iDevice users with true to life writing capabilities on an iPhone or iPad. In the future, professions such as Lawyers will be able to speedily mark-up documents on their iPads and doctors will be able to circle areas of concern on an x-ray or sign important documents requesting specialized tests quickly with an iPen. Marketing professionals, students and the rest of us will simply enjoy writing, brain storming and simply doodling quickly while working on an idea. Today, the US Patent and Trademark Office published Apple's twenty-seventh iPen related patent that will now be added to our "Smart Pen" Archives. Apple has been working hard on a future iPen for the last five years. At some point in time this damn has to burst and give life to world's most advanced smart pen. It's now beyond the point of whether they'll ever debut a smart pen or not, but rather when.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 56 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover Apple's possible Livescribe competing smart pen and the next generation of MagSafe with a fiber optic line incorporated. One of the questions that arise from the smart pen patent is whether Sir Jony Ive secretly works for UK's MI6.

Late yesterday Patently Apple discovered a unique patent application from Apple that was published in Europe. The patent contains a feast of cool new ideas floating around Cupertino's R&D labs. Apple's many inventions are illustrated on both MacBooks and a possible future iPen. Apple discusses varying flex display designs and a new illumination process that is very cool. Some of the features described in this latest patent filing could easily be applied to future wearable devices from Apple. All-in-all Apple's European patent application was a lot of fun to explore and I think that you'll really enjoy our report covering its many highlights.

While the late Steve Jobs wasn't a big fan of the "dumb stylus" of yesteryear, that was basically a tiny plastic pencil, he knew that one day the technology would give rise to an advanced iPen. Apple has invested heavily in the modern iPen with over 24 patents to their credit thus far. Today we get to take a look at Apple's fourth and fifth stylus related patents for the first quarter of 2014 alone. In Apple's latest inventions, they describe a sophisticated stylus with an internal mechanism using electrically charged discs that could elongate the tip of the stylus. In standard mode it's a pen. In the extended mode it's a brush with brush-like fibers. Apple's invention will really be appreciated by artists as they've created a very unique feature just for them in respect to color matching. The different modes of operation are designed to provide a more realistic writing and painting experience. In recent weeks, Microsoft has filed for a similar invention using magnets to control the writing and painting experience. This is where the trend is headed. With Apple having invested thousands of man hours on a next generation stylus or digital pen, let's hope that one day soon Apple's CEO Tim Cook will finally give this project the green light to deliver a high-end iDevice accessory for artists and business people alike.

Wow, what a week it's been for Apple's future iPen. It began on Tuesday with a surprise granted patent focused on iPen orientation detection followed by three detailed patent applications covering a multitude of features on Thursday. And while we were busy writing those reports we happen to stumble upon two more iPen patent applications that Apple filed in Europe that same day. The main patent filing is a spectacular overview of a modular iPen design that would allow users to choose different modules for different tasks. One feature, for example, would allow a student or business user giving a presentation to use this iPen as an advanced laser pointer. Apple's latest European filing is without a doubt one of the most sophisticated of them all to date. It's intelligently designed so that Apple will be able to introduce new accessory "expansion modules" over time so as to keep the iPen up to date with the latest and greatest features. In fact, Apple's patent application provides us with a number of possible iPen expansion module examples that they already have in mind.

On Tuesday we were surprised to see that Apple was granted a new iPen patent pertaining to orientation detection. While the late Steve Jobs wasn't a big fan of the "dumb stylus" of yesteryear that was basically a tiny plastic pencil, he knew that one day the technology would give rise to an advanced iPen. Apple has invested heavily in the modern iPen with over 20 patents to their credit thus far. Today, three new iPen related patent applications were published by the US Patent and Trademark Office that cover many new aspects of this invention including a unique eraser function.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 31 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we focus on one patent related to stylus orientation detection. While the late Steve Jobs wasn't a big fan of the "dumb stylus" of yesteryear that was basically a tiny plastic pencil, he knew that one day the technology would give rise to an advanced iPen. Apple has invested heavily in the modern iPen with over 20 patents to their credit thus far.

On September 12, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals that legendary John Elias that was behind many of Apple's original multitouch patents that made the iPhone a reality is now back at refining the patent claims of a smart pen design that he first introduced in 2011.

On August 29, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a new and elaborate collaboration system for videoconferencing that could be useful for the enterprise or for future distant leaning applications. The system introduces new interactive pie menus that will work with a sophisticated pen that will include memory and other advanced functions. Apple notes that as the pen advances toward the menu presented on a large presentation screen, an opening will automatically be created in the menu so that no content is covered by the presenter's hand or arm. Additionally, Apple notes that the new menu system will work with custom applications designed for this system yet also work with traditional software such as Photoshop, PowerPoint, and other common applications. Apple must think this is an important invention considering that this is a follow-up application to their already granted patent issued back in March.

Every once in a while we check out various IP databases around the world to see if we could find any Apple activity. Well, Bingo, we found three all new smart pen patents from Apple that are chock full of great ideas. In between Apple's US patent filings published in May and December, Apple's engineers were filing new patents in Europe that were published just two months ago. These have not been published in the US yet and so they're new to us. And boy does Apple go deeply into the rabbit hole or what. Apple has a ton of new ideas on how to advance the smart pen. Yet the one twist that I thought was intriguing is that Apple appears to be seriously thinking of turning smart pen tips into an accessory business. Do you want your pen to be a brush? No problem, here is a new pen tip for that: Ka-Ching. Do you want your pen to double as a bar code reader? No Problem, here is a tip for that: Ka-Ching. And there are a lot of "Ka-Chingy" ideas in these three new patents to go around. Check it out.