On December 27, the US Patent & Trademark Office published two of Apple’s patent applications respectfully titled Computer Generated Mosaics and Method and Apparatus for Digital Image Manipulation to Remove Image Blemishes . Both patents relate to Apple’s iLife application called iPhoto.

Patent: Computer Generated Mosaics

Apple’s Abstract Apparatus, methods and systems for creating mosaics are described. A method is provided that includes identifying an image for presentation as a mosaic; dividing the identified image into a plurality of tiles; scoring each tile; identifying a matching image from an image dataset using the score for each tile; and rendering the mosaic using the matching images.

Apple’s patent FIG. 1A shows an exemplary image that can be converted into a mosaic. Patent FIG. 1B shows a tiled version of the exemplary image of FIG. 1A and patent FIG. 1C shows a mosaic of the exemplary image of FIG. 1A.

Apple lists Mallory Jackson Paine (San Jose, CA), Devang Kalidas Naik (San Jose, CA), Steve Ko (San Francisco, CA), Joshua Matthew Williams (San Jose, CA), John William Scalo (Santa Cruz, CA), Kim E.A. Silverman (Mountain View, CA) as the inventors of this patent. For full details of this patent, Click 2. Apple engineer Kim Silverman, who is listed on this current patent application was also involved in another Apple patent covering a speech recognition system filed in October.

Patent: Method and Apparatus for Digital Image Manipulation to Remove Image Blemishes

Apple’s Abstract To better realize the great potential of amateur digital photography, the present invention introduces an intuitive system for digital manipulation. The system of the present invention allows a user to simply fix small blemishes in digital images. In one embodiment, the user merely places a cursor on the image blemish and activates a cursor control device such as a mouse button. In one embodiment, the blemish repair system is implemented using one of Dirichlet’s theorems. The theorem provides a method of creating a smooth surface within a circle by using the values of points around the circle. To prevent the result from appearing too smooth, some pixelization may be added.

Apple lists Russell Reid (Palo Alto, CA) as the sole inventor of this patent. Although not referenced in this current patent application, Apple and Mr. Reid were granted a patent by the same name in October of this year. For full details of this patent, Click 1.

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.