On May 5, 2009, the US Patent and Trademark Office published eleven granted patents for Apple Inc. The most notable amongst these include Apple’s OS X feature/application known as Dashboard, a design patent for Apple’s second generation iPod Nano and a file sharing system for iChat that uses an instant messaging application.

Issued Patent: Dashboard

Apple has been granted a patent for User interface element with auxiliary function which is better known as Dashboard. Dashboard is an application for Apple’s Mac OS X operating systems, used for hosting mini-applications known as widgets. It was first introduced in Apple’s Tiger OS. Dashboard is a semi-transparent layer that is invisible to the user unless activated by clicking its icon in the Dock. Alternatively, the user can invoke Dashboard by moving the cursor into a preassigned hot corner, or by pressing a hot key, both of which can be set to the user’s preference.

When Dashboard is activated, the user’s desktop is dimmed and widgets appear in the foreground. Like application windows, they can be moved around, rearranged, deleted, and recreated (so that more than one of the same Widget is open at the same time, possibly with different settings). New widgets can be opened, via an icon bar on the bottom of the layer, by dragging a widget icon out into the layer. After loading, the widget is ready for use. Below is Apple’s original patent Fig.15 depicting Dashboard. A few of the widgets shown in Figure 15 also appear in the final version of Dashboard noted above.

Apple lists the following Dashboard inventors as: Chaudhri; Imran A. (San Francisco, CA), Louch; John (San Luis Obispo, CA), Grignon; Andrew M. (Campbell, CA) and Christie; Gregory N. (San Jose, CA). Apple’s patent was originally filed in March 2006.

Issued Patent: iPod Nano

Apple has been granted a patent for a “Media Device” which is shown here to be that of a second generation iPod Nano.

Apple lists the inventors of the iPod Nano as: Andre; Bartley K. (Menlo Park, CA), Coster; Daniel J. (San Francisco, CA), De Iuliis; Daniele (San Francisco, CA), Howarth; Richard P. (San Francisco, CA), Ive; Jonathan P. (San Francisco, CA), Jobs; Steve (Palo Alto, CA), Kerr; Duncan Robert (San Francisco, CA), Nishibori; Shin (San Francisco, CA), Rohrbach; Matthew Dean (San Francisco, CA), Satzger; Douglas B. (Menlo Park, CA), Seid; Calvin Q. (Palo Alto, CA), Stringer; Christopher J. (Portola Valley, CA), Whang; Eugene Antony (San Francisco, CA) and Zorkendorfer; Rico (San Francisco, CA).

Issued Patent: File sharing using near real time messaging

Apple’s abstract describes the patent as “a system and method for providing file sharing using an instant messaging application.” The patent, which relates to Apple’s iChat, is noted here as a QuickTime Web Conference.

Apple adds that “a communication channel is established via an instant messaging application between a local device and a remote device over a network. In a file sharing window on the local device a representation of a file stored in the remote device is displayed. The file sharing window is associated with the instant messaging application and the file sharing window enables the local device to access the file stored in the remote device via the communication channel of the instant messaging application.”

Apple lists Guy Riddle (Los Gatos, CA) as the sole inventor of this patent which appears to go back to 1996.

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

Jack Purcher, MacNN Senior Patent Editor.