On December 7, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple’s patent application titled ‘Clipview applications.’ One of the key points to this patent is its focus on spreadsheets and could indirectly be linked to Apple’s “Numbers” trademark. Apple’s European filing for “Numbers” was given “registered status” on July 4, 2006. Out of the three similar patents filed today, only this patent points to spreadsheets specifically in both its summary and patent claims. The remainder of the patent pertains to Apple’s Dashboard and generally Widgets.

Apple’s Abstract

An implementation allows a user to select an area of interest in a content source and to clip content from the area of interest. A variety of content types may be clipped and presented to a user, and the clipped content may be refreshed from the selected area of interest. Various configuration parameters, as well as the clipped content, may be stored for future retrieval by a clipping application that presents the clipped content. Methods, computer program products, systems, and data structures are provided. One method includes identifying one or more content sources, identifying a portion of a content source to be included in each of a first and second view, storing information associated with the identified content source for each view including a name and identifying information for designating a respective portion of a content source, and displaying both the first and second view in an aggregate view.

Key Spreadsheet Summary Point

Apple notes in their summary that “advantageous implementations can include one or more of the following features. The identified portion can include an interactive portion that initiates a command in the application. The application can be the Mac OS X operating system and the identified portion includes a finder frame. The application can be a spreadsheet application and the identified portion includes one or more cells of a spreadsheet. The portions of the one or more cells can be non-contiguous in the spreadsheet. One or more of the one or more cells can be identified in different spreadsheets. Displaying the identified portion can include not initiating the application and directly accessing the identified portion from a datastore associated with the application.

Key Apple Claims for a Spreadsheet

Supporting Apple’s summary point on a spreadsheet application are several specific patent claims. In Claim 11 Apple states that “the method of claim 8 wherein the application is a spreadsheet application and the identified portion includes one or more cells of a spreadsheet. In Claim 12 they state that “the method of claim 11 wherein the portions of the one or more cells are non-contiguous in the spreadsheet. In Claim 13 they state that “the method of claim 11 wherein one or more of the one or more cells are identified in different spreadsheets. Jumping to Claim 77, Apple states that the “method of claim 76 wherein the digital content source is selected from the group consisting of a web page, a file, a document, or a spreadsheet. A similar claim is made in Claim 91.

It’s Apple’s patent claims which defines a spreadsheet application as a primal focus of this patent and therefore differentiates itself from simply being a generalized boilerplate entry.

Apple engineers Scot Forstall and Imran A. Chaudhri are listed as the inventors.

NOTICE: MacNN presents only a brief summary of patents with associated graphic(s) for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application and/or grant is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent applications and/or grants should be read in its entirety for further details.

Written and researched by Neo.