Apple Wins Nine Patents covering Telephony, New York’s Famous Glass Staircase, More
On January 23, the US Patent & Trademark Office published nine of Apple’s newly granted patents. This patent report briefly covers all nine patents which present inventions ranging from a telephone conferencing application to a peek at one aspect of Apple’s iPod UI, and believe it or not, to a patent which covers Apple’s famous glass staircase which is located in its Fifth Avenue Store in Manhattan. For the record, Steve Jobs is actually listed as one of the inventors of this unique staircase.
Glass support member
Apple’s Abstract: A monolithic glass member for supporting loads is disclosed. The glass member includes a plurality of glass sheets that are laminated together with one or more bonding layers. One of the glass sheets has a cut out at an edge thereof to receive a connector. The connector provides a means for connecting and supporting the glass member relative to other structures.
Apple later states that the “invention relates, in another embodiment, to a staircase. The stair case includes a pair of spaced apart vertical walls.” Steve Jobs along with nine other engineers are listed as the inventors of this patent.
Accessories providing a telephone conference application one or more capabilities independent of the teleconference application
Apple’s Summary: A system and method providing capability expansion in a teleconferencing environment is disclosed. One or more accessories are invoked and arranged in an accessory stack associated with an application. The accessory stack is positioned logically between a teleconferencing application and a conference component in both a local and a remote end point. Each accessory provides at least one additional capability to the system independent of the application and the conference component. The number of accessories so stacked can be arbitrarily large. In this way, a teleconference application with limited functionality can be made to appear to the user to be quite robust. Moreover, additional capabilities can be easily added to the system.
In one embodiment, the application only communicates directly with the top accessory in the stack and the conference component only communicates directly with the bottom accessory in the stack. Also, in one embodiment, the accessories with which user interaction is required remain independent of the application by previewing system events before the application sees such events. This allows the accessory to claim such system events as “mouse downs” in its window transparently to the application.
File Sharing and Shared Whiteboard: Accessories fall within two classes, accessories associated with a window and faceless accessories. Many window associated accessories are used for relatively low bandwidth sharing functions including but not limited to, file sharing, shared whiteboard, chat window, application sharing and desk top sharing. File sharing allows members of a teleconference to share files by placing those files in the associated accessory window. Application sharing would allow members to share a running application. For example, a word processing document may be shared such that all members can edit the document during the conference. A shared white board accessory would create a window in which graphics and text can be shared between members. Desk top sharing allows the teleconference members to access and use items residing on remote members’ desk tops. A chat window could be used as a low bandwidth replacement for the audio/visual media of the teleconference allowing near real-time sharing of typed messages.
Apple Mighty Mouse Patent: Mouse having a button-less panning and scrolling switch
Apple’s Abstract: A mouse for controlling movements on a display screen is disclosed. The mouse includes a housing that is gripped by a user during manipulation of the mouse and a sensor configured to detect the presence of a user’s hand or portions thereof located outside of and in close proximity to a predetermined portion of the housing. The signals produced by the sensor are used to control functionalities of the mouse, as for example, switching between a cursor control mode and a scroll/pan control mode of the mouse.
Method and apparatus for simulating a mechanical keyboard action in an electronic keyboard
Apple’s Abstract: An electronic keyboard simulates the keyboard action of one or more acoustic pianos and/or organs. Sensors associated with each key capture the force exerted on the key, the speed of the key and the position of the key to compute an amount of force to apply in feedback to the depressed key. An actuator associated with each key provides the computed feedback value as a counter-force to the player’s finger pressure. Feedback may be computed in one or more processors by applying the sensor readings to a system model of the desired instruments mechanical key action. Also, feedback may be determined through a lookup table containing feedback values defining a particular instrument’s action. The player can switch between different instrument action definitions as desired, and may tune certain parameters to achieve a customized action.
Apple’s patent FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate two implementations of a key with a sensor and actuator in accordance with embodiments of the invention.
Deferred shading graphics pipeline processor having advanced features
Apple’s patent relates to computing systems generally, to three-dimensional computer graphics, more particularly, and most particularly to structure and method for a three-dimensional graphics processor implementing differed shading and other enhanced features.
Apple’s Abstract: A deferred shading graphics pipeline processor and method are provided encompassing numerous substructures. Embodiments of the processor and method may include one or more of deferred shading, a tiled frame buffer, and multiple stage hidden surface removal processing. In the deferred shading graphics pipeline, hidden surface removal is completed before pixel coloring is done. The pipeline processor comprises a command fetch and decode unit, a geometry unit, a mode extraction unit, a sort unit, a setup unit, a cull unit, a mode injection unit, a fragment unit, a texture unit, a Phong lighting unit, a pixel unit, and a backend unit.
Centralized queue in network printing systems
Apple’s Abstract: A centralized queue for a network printing system allows clients to make job requests and be placed in a job queue without transmitting the actual print job data to the network. An imaging device protocol (IDP) operates independently of the network layers below and only requires that a transport protocol/port be bidirectional. A variety of heterogeneous network protocols may be supported by IDP for placing all of the incoming print job information in a print queue regardless of the protocol. Print job information from both IDP and non-IDP protocol/ports may be placed in the print queue by emulating IDP on the non-IDP protocol/ports. As a result, job information for all of the print jobs attempting to access a busy printer may be stored in the print queue so that the print jobs can be printed by the printer with a fair arbitration once the network printer becomes available.
Method and apparatus for a calibrated variable phase offset timing between synchronous clock subdomains
Apple’s Abstract: A method and apparatus for a calibrated variable phase offset timing between synchronous clock subdomains is described. In one embodiment, the invention is an apparatus. The apparatus includes a first subsystem and a second subsystem coupled to the first subsystem. The apparatus also includes a clock signal generator coupled to the first subsystem and coupled to the second subsystem. The clock signal generator is to supply a first clock to the first subsystem and to supply a second clock to the first subsystem and to supply a third clock to the second subsystem. Each of the first clock, the second clock and the third clock are derived from a common clock, the first clock having a first predetermined phase offset relative to the third clock, and the second clock having a second predetermined phase offset relative to the third clock. The first predetermined phase offset and the second predetermined phase offset are adjustable based on performance characteristics of the first subsystem and performance characteristics of the second subsystem.
Apple iPod Patent: Graphical user interface and methods of use thereof in a multimedia player
In a portable multimedia device, a method, apparatus, and system for providing user supplied configuration data are described. In one embodiment, a hierarchically ordered graphical user interface are provided. A first order, or home, interface provides a highest order of user selectable items each of which, when selected, results in an automatic transition to a lower order user interface associated with the selected item. In one of the described embodiments, the lower order interface includes other user selectable items associated with the previously selected item from the higher order user interface.
Last but not least, Apple was granted a design patent for a User interface for computer display.
For further information on these patents, please refer to the following hyperlinks: Accessories providing a telephone conference application, Glass support member, Apple Mighty Mouse Patent, simulating a mechanical keyboard action in an electronic keyboard, Deferred shading graphics pipeline processor having advanced features, Centralized queue in network printing systems, calibrated variable phase offset timing between synchronous clock subdomains, calibrated variable phase offset timing, Apple iPod Patent.
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.
