Apple has won two design patents (D625,716 and D625,717) by the US Patent & Trademark Office for the MacBook Air. The inventors are Bartley Andre, Bartley Daniele De Iuliis, Evans Hankey, Richard Howarth, Jonathan Ive, Steve Jobs, Duncan Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Peter Russell-Clarke, Douglas Satzger, Christopher Stringer, Eugene Whang and Rico Zorkendorfer
Apple was also granted a patent design (number D625,733) for its iPhone compass icon, invented by Fredy Anzures. Other patents won by Apple are as follows.
Patent number 7,817,180 involves iChat as it involves video procesing in a multi-participant video conference. Some embodiments provide an architecture for establishing multi-participant video conferences. This architecture has a central distributor that receives video images from two or more participants. From the received images, the central distributor generates composite images that the central distributor transmits back to the participants. Each composite image includes a set of sub images, where each sub image belongs to one participant. In some embodiments, the central distributor saves network bandwidth by removing each particular participant’s image from the composite image that the central distributor sends to the particular participant. In some embodiments, images received from each participant are arranged in the composite in a non-interleaved manner. For instance, in some embodiments, the composite image includes at most one sub-image for each participant, and no two sub-images are interleaved. The inventors are Hyeonkuk Jeong, Joe Abuan and Jim Normile.
Patent number 7,817,166 is for a stereo windowing system with translucent window support. It involves Apple’s Quartz Extreme technology. The patent involves an operating system level windowing system that provides for the reliable display of multiple translucent windows. Incorporating stereo object processing within the windowing system itself (rather than at the application level), permits the windowing system to ensure that stereo content is reliably displayed (e.g., via use of blue-line technology) regardless of whether a window within which stereo content is displayed is occluded or overlapped by another window. Michael J. Paquette is the inventor.
Patent number 7,817,166 is for wireless communications circuitry with antenna sharing capabilities for handheld electronic devices. Handheld electronic devices are provided that contain wireless communications circuitry. The wireless communications circuitry may have first and second transceiver circuits that operate in the same radio-frequency band using different communications protocols. The wireless communications circuitry may have a configurable radio-frequency combiner and divider circuit that is coupled between an antenna and the first and second transceiver circuits. The combiner and divider circuit can be configured to support simultaneous use of the antenna by the first and second transceiver circuits. When simultaneous use is not required, the combiner and divider circuit can be used by either the first transceiver circuit or the second transceiver circuit. Louie J. Sanguinetti is the inventor.
Patent number 7,818,659 is for a news feed viewer. Techniques for presenting and managing syndication XML (feeds) are disclosed. In one embodiment, a user can modify how a feed is displayed, such as which content (and how much) is displayed, in what order, and how it is formatted. In another embodiment, a modification regarding how a feed is displayed is stored so that it can be used again at a later time. In yet another embodiment, a user can create a custom feed through aggregation and/or filtering of existing feeds. Aggregation includes, for example, merging the articles of multiple feeds to form a new feed. Filtering includes, for example, selecting a subset of articles of a feed based on whether they satisfy a search query. In yet another embodiment, a user can find articles by entering a search query into a search engine that searches feeds, which will identify one or more articles that satisfy the query. The inventors are Jessica Kahn, Jens Alfke, Sarah Anne Wilkin, Albert Riley Howard Jr., Scott James Forstall, Stephen O. Lemay, Donald Dale Melton and Wayne Russell Loofbourrow.
Patent number 7,816,811 involves portable power source to provide power to an electronic device via an interface. A portable power source is configured for use with an electronic device. The portable power source cooperates and communicates with the electronic device via a peripheral bus to which the electronic device is attachable. The portable power source includes circuitry to process a power request signal from the electronic device to determine whether a device connected to a bus interface of the portable power source is requesting power from the portable power source. The inventors are David John Tupman, Doug M. Farrar, Joseph R. Fisher, Jesse L. Dorogusker and Donald J. Novotney.