One of the things that really spoils live concerts these days is that half the people there don’t seem to want to watch it live at all – they’d rather watch it through their phone screen, holding the device up and blocking the view of those behind them. This is a problem Apple is seeking to solve in a patent first applied for in 2011 and granted today …
Apple’s record as the biggest target in the world for patent claims doesn’t look likely to change any time soon. The WSJ reports that two out of the three top rankings for the most international patent filings are Chinese companies: Huawei and ZTE.
Last year, Huawei, the world’s third-largest smartphone maker and the leader in the telecommunications-equipment market, was the largest filer of international patent applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, which makes it easier for companies to file patents in multiple countries […]
Patents are also playing a role in the harsher mobile landscape Apple and Samsung are navigating in China, where regulators increasingly insist that foreign companies play by Beijing’s rules.
We recently got a very stark view of what ‘Beijing’s rules’ means when it comes to patent battles …
Shenzhen Baili, the Chinese company that last week managed to win a Beijing patent office ruling that the iPhone 6 copied its own Baili 100C smartphone, is effectively defunct, reports the WSJ.
[Parent company] Digione had collapsed, brought down by buggy products, mismanagement and fierce competition, according to former employees and investors. Digione has been absent from China’s mobile-phone market for at least a year and Baidu has accused it of squandering its investment.
When the WSJ attempted to track down the company behind the alleged patent, it found no signs that it was still operating …
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday ruled that a 2011 law designed to make it easier to defeat new patent trolls were legal. The law had been challenged by a company attempting to patent something which had long been done by other companies.
The case before the Supreme Court focused on a patent held by Cuozzo Speed Technologies LLC that claims an invention for alerting drivers when they are speeding. GPS technology company Garmin brought a challenge at the Patent Office, which invalidated the Cuozzo patent after concluding its claims weren’t innovative when viewed against other prior technologies.
The ruling will be of particular benefit to Apple …
Apple was today granted a patent for what it describes as a ‘consumer electronic product [which] includes at least a transparent housing and a flexible display.’ The accompanying drawings show a device which has a display which completely wraps around the device – covering front, rear and sides – with only tiny bezels at the top and bottom.
While Apple uses generic language throughout most of the patent text, it does use the example of a smartphone in places, and the main drawing clearly shows an iOS device with a phone icon present, indicating that the company has an iPhone in mind.
If you’re wondering about one oddity in the drawings, there’s a reason for that …
Patently Apple has a piece entitled Apple Invents a User Interface for Combinable Virtual iOS Desktops on a Mac. It references a patent which PA suggests is for a Mac that could be used to run (or at least display) iOS apps.
Using an iPhone or Apple Watch to unlock (or even summon) a car is no big deal these days, but an Apple patent granted today describes an extremely powerful and flexible approach that includes the ability to create limited, temporary ‘keys’ for others.
Making a phone call: one of several claimed patent infringements …
Patent trolls – companies that buy old patents purely to sue companies for claimed infringements – love to get their hands on very generic patents, as those give them the maximum number of possible targets. But Texas-based Corydoras Technologies LLC wins the prize for the dumbest claims yet against Apple. It is alleging, among other things, that the iPhone infringes its patents by making phone calls and sending emails …
A patent published today suggests that Apple may have plans to allow the Apple Pencil to be used with Mac trackpads as well as the two iPad Pro models.
The patent was originally filed in 2014, when Apple referred to the Apple Pencil as ‘the stylus.’ Much of the text focuses on use of the stylus with a ‘touch screen display’ (aka an iPad), but several of the drawings show what appear to be a trackpad and iMac …
Concept image: Martin Hajek for Computer Bild
Concept designers have been creating renderings of bezel-free iPhones – where the display extends all the way to the edges of the phone – for years now. One major barrier to realizing this vision has, of course, been the Home button with its embedded Touch ID sensor.
Third-party companies have already developed transparent fingerprint sensors capable of being embedded into a smartphone display, and an Apple patent filed in March of last year but only published yesterday describes the exact same approach …
A recent patent filed by Apple and discovered by PatentlyApple hints at ways in which Apple is planning to make its HomeKit platform smarter. The patent, published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, is for an “automated environment” in which HomeKit would be able to track the routines of users and implement automated behaviors based on those habits.
Apple has agreed to pay $24.9M to settle a long-running lawsuit alleging that Siri violated a patent owned by a New York institute and exclusively licensed to a company in Dallas. The patent predates the launch of Siri by four years.
The Albany Business Review notes that Apple was sued not by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which holds the patent, but by Dallas-based Dynamic Advances, which licensed it. The company reportedly receives $5M now, and the balance after meeting unspecified conditions. In return, Apple gets a license to use the patented technology for three years.
The settlement means that the patent trial, due to take place in New York next month, will no longer proceed. However, that may not be the end of it …
A patent application spotted by Patently Apple suggests that the Apple Watch turning on its display as you raise your wrist could be just the first of many supported gestures. Pointing, waving and even extending pinky and thumb in a ‘phone me’ gesture could all be used to initiate actions on either the Watch itself or a paired iPhone.
While voice and touch input can be an effective way to control a device, there may be situations where the user’s ability to speak the verbal command or perform the touch gesture may be limited.
This [patent] relates to a device that detects a user’s motion and gesture input through the movement of one or more of the user’s hand, arm, wrist, and fingers, for example, to provide commands to the device or to other devices […] The device can interpret the gesture as an input command, and the device can perform an operation.
Apple gives a number of illustrative examples of such gestures …
Yesterday we detailed an Apple patent showing work on a stackable Smart Connector plug of sorts. Today we get a look at a similar invention aimed at making the I/O on future devices more versatile with Apple’s invention of a “Universal Magnetic Adapter” that could allow for more future-proof devices using only a single port. As pictured in the drawing accompanying the patent above, the technology allows for a single port that uses magnetic inserts as adapters for your various devices. Or in other words, MagSafe for everything using a single port and adapters for the various connectors.
In its patent, Apple describes the problem with the current mess of adapters and cables users have to deal:
The endless patent battles between Apple and Samsung took an interesting turn this week when Apple claimed that the most recent court ruling violated the Seventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: the right to trial by jury.
Back in 2014, Apple was awarded $119.6M when Samsung was found to have violated three of the five patents in dispute. That award was overturned last month when an appeals court ruled that Samsung didn’t infringe one of the three patents, and declared the other two invalid.
The problem, explains Reuters, is that the appellate court didn’t just refer to the trial court record in reaching its conclusions, it also considered new evidence …
Update: Some are suggesting that the patent could simply be for tiny shifts that would allow the iPhone camera to fill in missing detail that falls between pixels, though it’s unclear how this would differ from a technique already in use by Hasselblad. Thanks to James for the Hasselblad link.
iPhones have long allowed you to create panoramic images by taking multiple photos which the camera stitches together. But an Apple patent granted today could allow future iPhones to take panoramic photos effectively with a single shot. Apple describes this as ‘super resolution mode.’
The reality would be that the iPhone would still take multiple photos to switch together, but the process would be automated so the user experience would be taking just one shot …
When Apple signed an exclusive deal to use the superstrong alloy liquidmetal way back in 2010, there was a lot of speculation about how Apple might use it. The only immediate answer we saw was in the SIM ejection tool supplied with iPhones.
While some had expected Apple to use liquidmetal for product casings, the high cost of the material seemed to rule that out, at least in the short-term. There’s also been no sign of the super long-lasting batteries some had suggested.
But Apple clearly does have a use for it beyond SIM eject tools, last year renewing those exclusive rights – and a patent granted to the company today suggests one possible reason why …
An appeals court on Friday overturned a ruling that would have forced Samsung to pay $120 million in damages to Apple for patent infringement, reports Reuters. In this specific case, one of several patent battles between the two companies, Apple claimed that Samsung infringed on its “quick links” patent.
Apple was today granted a design patent on the beautiful Istanbul store that opened back in 2014. The store in Turkey’s largest city is known as the ‘Glass Lantern.’ The store has a glass rectangle atop the larger store beneath, each side of the rectangle comprising a single pane of glass, with a water feature covering the rest of the store’s roof.
A second patent was granted for the Apple Store in Zhongjie Joy City, China. This two-story design with a suspended upper floor and floor-to-ceiling glass walls spanning the full height of the building is one Apple is using in a number of new stores.
Patently Apple notes that the Turkish store was awarded the Supreme Award for Structural Engineering Excellence in the year it opened.
Apple has previously been awarded patents for its Fifth Avenue and Shanghai stores, Steve Jobs among those credited as an inventor in the case of the New York store. The company has also successfully trademarked store interior designs in Europe.
iPhones could in future automatically sound louder or quieter notification alerts depending on the level of background noise. A patent application published today describes how both an iPhone and Apple Watch could periodically measure ambient sound levels, adjusting notification volumes to an appropriate level.
The patent notes that while users can manually adjust the volume of alerts, many don’t do so because they forget or because it’s too much hassle. The patent suggests that the primary sound reading would be taken from the Apple Watch (aka ‘a wearable device’) …
In the patent battle that feels as if it will never end, Apple has today asked the Supreme Court not to review Samsung’s latest appeals request in the two companies’ ongoing patent feud. Back in December, it was announced that Apple and Samsung had reached a $548 million settlement, but with a catch. Samsung said in its part of the agreement that it reserved the right to reclaim reimbursement should any position of the trial be modified…
An intriguing Apple patent application published today describes how the Touch ID home button could gain additional functionality, allowing it to perform different actions in response to different fingerprints, as well as adding pressure sensors to provide it with 3D Touch type functionality.
The patent goes into a great deal of detail about the technology, with little information as to what it might be used for, but Apple does give a couple of clues. One use of different fingerprints described is to allow someone else to use your iPhone or iPad, but restrict their access to particular apps and for a limited time. The obvious application here would be allowing a child to use only specific apps and/or limit the time they are allowed to use a device …
Last month, it was reported that patent troll VirnetX is seeking $532 million in damages from Apple, claiming that the company has taken its intellectual property without permission. The suit focused on a variety of VirnetX patents relating to technology used in creating Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs. VirnetX said that Apple’s own VPN technology, as well as its iMessage and FaceTime services, infringe on its patents. After another week of hearing, the East Texas Federal District Court has now unanimously ruled that Apple owes VirnetX $625 million in damages.
Apple was today granted a patent for detecting touch-free gestures at close range, the patent language suggesting that the approach could build on the capabilities of multi-touch and 3D touch to respond to fingers hovering close to an iPhone or iPad display, as well as use on keyboards and trackpads.
The patent describes using sensors similar to the proximity detectors used to disable accidental touch input on the iPhone screen when you’re holding the phone to your face during a call. Unlike longer-range gesture technologies like Kinect, the system would detect ‘hover events’ just above the surface of the screen …