The US Patent and Trademark Office today published three patents that it approved for Apple, relating to real-time collaboration, time-based user interface object interaction, and element number tables. The first patent, Method and Apparatus for Supporting Real-Time Collaboration, demonstrates synchronicity on a single application between multiple remote users. The patent illustrates users operating a local software application over the internet or a network, with the goal of sharing a common workflow between users.

The second, entitled "Time-Based, Non-Constant Translation of User Interface Objects Between States", suggests the manipulation of user interface elements in an aesthetically pleasing manner. This includes implementation of transitional effects between window states, such as scaling the size of the window.

The final patent is one entitled "Retrieving Multi-Byte Vector Elements form Byte Indexed Table using Replicated and Consecutive Number Added Indices for Each Element Index". The method involves a lookup operation which can be used to access sequentially smaller sets of data using a single byte of data to flag the desired location.