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Apple has asked the United States International Trade Commission (or ITC) to stay a ban on sales of older iPhone and iPads while a court considers an appeal. The company filed a motion on Monday arguing that the ban, which is the result of a Samsung patent infringement complaint, will ‘sweep away an entire segment of Apple’s products…’
“Less than four weeks before an import ban on popular Apple products will take effect, the iPhone maker is asking the International Trade Commission to stay the ban while a court considers an appeal.
In a motion filed Monday with the ITC, Apple said the ban, set for August 5th, will “sweep away an entire segment of Apple’s product offerings,” and also harm its phone carrier partners.”
For those who missed it, the ITC ruled last month that several Apple products, including the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS and 3G iPads, infringe on one of Samsung’s cellular patents. The commission issued a blanket sales ban on the devices, which would bar Apple from importing them into the country, and it’s currently trying to appeal the decision.
“If the Orders go into effect, Apple will lose not only sales of its iPhone 4 (GSM) and iPad 2 3G (GSM) products but also the opportunity to gain new smartphone and tablet customers who otherwise would have purchased these entry- level Apple devices…
…The products subject to the Commission’s orders have been purchased by [REDACTED]. They remain very popular and are strong sellers for the GSM carriers. As noted above, the GSM carriers will be placed at a competitive disadvantage against their CDMA competitors because the Orders will prevent them from offering these popular, entry-level devices.”
In a statement last month, Apple said that the ban would not impact the availability of its products in the United States. But given the above comments from Monday’s filing, it appears they’re starting to get a bit more nervous. If Apple doesn’t win the stay, the White House Administration is essentially its final hope to avoid the sales ban.
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With iWatch trademarks linked to Apple spotted in places like Japan, Russia and a slew of other countries, it is no surprise speculation is intensifying that the iPhone maker is secretly developing a wearable gizmo of some sort. Another piece of the Apple smartwatch puzzle has now fallen into place as The United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) published Friday a patent filing detailing a flexible battery design specifically conceived for a wristwatch and/or other bendable mobile devices…
The crux of the invention calls for coupling galvanic or photovoltaic cells between two laminate layers and using an adhesive to isolate the cells from each other. Such an arrangement would help in engineering battery packs that fit curved form factors.
It may also allow engineers to selectively remove one or more cells from the pack, “which may be desirable from a manufacturing perspective,” Apple writes. What makes Apple’s filing even more eyebrow-raising is the specific mention of bendable gadgets such as wristwatches.
The solution, Apple writes, may be employed in “wristwatches, calculators, laptop computers, tablet computers, and/or music players, to name but a few.” For what it’s worth, this is the first time Apple’s filings mentioned wristwatches in regard to curved battery designs.
Apple researching curved batteries is interesting in light of ongoing iWatch talk. The rumored Apple-branded wristwatch is apparently facing challenges directly related to battery performance.
The current iWatch prototypes – thought to run a version of iOS – are reportedly only going for a couple days max versus Apple’s self-imposed goal of at least 4-5 days between charges, per The Verge.
Reducing wasted space and accommodating curved designs would certainly help squeeze every last drop of power out of its flexible battery packs. Moreover, the design creates a more reliable product compared to conventional battery packs. For instance, should moisture or dust enter the cavity of a cell, only that cell would fail rather than the entire battery pack.
This isn’t the first Apple’s invention of this kind.
A pair of patent filings dated October 28, 2011 describe enclosing battery components in a flexible pouch that molds to a product. Those two patents are also meant to help shape a mobile battery so it fits better into a housing and reduce wasted internal space.
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Is Apple preparing to offer fingerprint reading as part of its rumored iPhone 5S? That question returned Thursday after a patent from Apple describing a fingerprint-reading structure of sorts was approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
A number of theories exist on when a new iPhone will appear and what might be the key features. Today’s patent approval could solve both. The technology giant seems to have also cracked the question of how to scan a fingerprint while although protecting the delicate circuitry required to identify the owner…
A key to Apple patent is the encapsulation design, which both protects the actual sensor and permits such sensitive technology to live on a smartphone which must endure day-in-day-out abuse.
Apple’s patent application, filed in February and titled ‘Integrally molded die and bezel structure for fingerprint sensors and the like,’ a unitary encapsulation structure which protects a biometric sensor inside a device.
An excerpt from the patent summary:
The die and the bezel are encased in a unitary encapsulation structure to protect those elements from mechanical, electrical, and environmental damage, yet with a portion of the sensor array and the bezel exposed or at most thinly covered by the encapsulation or other coating material structure.
Finding that protective sealant may be part of why expectations for a June shipping date for the iPhone 5S began slipping.
“The phone, widely referred to as the iPhone 5S, is expected to include new features such as a fingerprint sensor,” Reuters reported in April. “A supply chain source in Taiwan said Apple was trying to find a coating material that did not interfere with the fingerprint sensor, and this may be causing a delay”.
Although the 2012 acquisition of biometrics provider Authentec first got tongues wagging about an iPhone with fingerprint-reading capabilities, more evidence surfaced with this latest patent.
Among the inventors Apple credited with developing the encapsulated sensor: Giovanni Gozzini.
Gozzini works for STMicroelectronics, which along with building the gyroscope used by the iPhone 5 also has fingerprint sensor patents.
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Apple’s no stranger to being on the defendant side of patent infringement lawsuits. In addition to its ongoing court battle with Samsung, there are a number of smaller companies hoping to squeeze some money out of the tech giant via patent suits. And today, we’re adding another one to the list.
Texas-based Bluebonnet Telecommunications filed a lawsuit against Apple yesterday in an [surprise] Eastern District Texas courtroom, claiming that the call forwarding feature found in the company’s iPhone 4S and 5 handsets infringes on one of its patents it has owned for over a decade…
The patent in question is U.S. Patent No. 5,485,511, which as AppleInsider notes, covers a “method and apparatus for determining the telephony features assigned to a telephone.” More specifically, it describes a telephone that talks to a central switch to display a list of telephony features.
On the surface, Bluebonnet looks like your typical patent troll. It acquired the 511 patent from Siemens Rolm Communications back in June of 1996, and in addition to this Apple lawsuit, it is using it in infringement suits against a number of high profile tech companies includingPantech and Samsung.
The firm is seeking financial damages resulting from the 511 patent infringement, as well as a permanent injunction barring Apple from further infringingment. The company is also requesting that the court add pre-judgment and post-judgment interest on the total amount of damages awarded.
In somewhat related news, it was announced earlier today that Apple’s IP chief, Boris Teksler, has left the company to join French media company Technicolor.
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Among the nearly 40 Apple patents granted today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) are ones covering multi-touch technology, as well as designs for the iPhone 5 and the Lightning connector. The widest-ranging group of patents involves the multi-touch technology for the iPhone 5 and latest iPads and iPods.
Meanwhile, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Design, Jonathan Ive, is given lead credit for designing the iPhone 5…
In the case of multi-touch, the three patents “generally cover apparatus and methods for simultaneously tracking multiple finger and palm contacts as hands approach, touch and slide across a proximity-sensing, multi-touch surface,”writes Patently Apple, which provided details of the 39 patents approved.
Another group of the patents approved today cover the design of the iPhone 5. The patent originally filed in the third quarter of 2012 credits Ive and his team of designers.
By the way, Ive’s title was upgraded to SVP following the introduction of the highly-debated flat makeover of iOS 7. Apple was also granted another patent on their new Lighting connector, introduced with the iPhone 5.
The latest patents granted involved the Lightning adapter, too.
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In a decision issued on March 26, but kept classified until earlier this week, an International Trade Commission judge found Samsung to be infringing on Apple’s US RE41,922 patent that covers things like text selection and translucent buttons.
It’s only a preliminary decision, and the judge only found Samsung guilty of infringement on one of two patents listed in the complaint. But if the decision gets upheld, Samsung could once again be looking at a major product ban in the US…
“Samsung Electronics Co Ltd infringed a key portion of an Apple Inc patent by including a text-selection feature in its smartphones and tablets, an International Trade Commission judge said in a preliminary decision…
…If it is upheld, the ITC can order any infringing device to be barred from importation into the United States. Apple has alleged that Samsung’s Galaxy, Transform and Nexus devices, among others, were among those made with the infringing technology.”
The patent in question is labeled a “method or apparatus for providing translucent images on a computer display,” and the features in Samsung’s products that seem to be infringing on it are text selection in its browser and the buttons in its Photo Gallery.
Apple filed the original complaint with the ITC in mid-2011, and initially it included 7 patents. Samsung was found guilty of infringing on four of them last October, and Judge Thomas Pender was asked to reexamine two of them, which brings us to today.
Although we’re still a ways off from a definitive outcome here—the full ITC commission isn’t expected to rule until August, and then there will almost certainly be appeals—the ramifications of it could be huge. Several Samsung products could face sales bans.
Of course, it seems like we’ve heard this story before, and nothing ever happens. In fact, look at Apple’s big $1 billion victory against Samsung last fall. That settlement has since been cut in half, and who knows when, or if, Samsung will have to pay it.
I get that you have to defend your intellectual property, but this just all seems like such a waste of time and resources.
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Apple seems to be working on a way to simplify the chore or recharging all of your iDevices. A new patent granted to the iPad and iPhone maker describes a Smart Cover that also recharges the device using induction. The patent, entitled “Integrated inductive charging in protective cover”, brings the convenience of a charging mat to the Smart Cover now used to protect your iPad screen.
Meanwhile, the inductive technology could eliminate the tangle of wires now required to keep your iPhone, iPad, iPod and whatever other devices Apple has in the pipeline charged…
In the described embodiments, the body portion includes an inductive power transmitter arranged to wirelessly pass power to a corresponding inductive power receiver unit disposed within the tablet device by inductively coupling, at least a
first magnetic element, and at least a second magnetic element used to secure the body portion to the display in a closed configuration.
Inductive charging works by electricity moving from a flat plat into the device using induction. Usually, such inductive chargers are stand-alone products and relatively expensive compared to plugging your iDevice into the wall socket.
As Macworld UK explains, there are two basic ways the Smart Cover could recharge your iPad.
The first method would take sips of power from your plugged-in iPad, storing the electricity in a battery integrated into the Smart Cover. That power would then be returned to the iPad once you’re on the move. A second route could be plugging in the Smart Cover using Apple’s new Lightning connector, then charging the tablet.
The Smart Cover inductive charger would still work when it is being employed as a stand.
The whole idea of wireless charging of iDevices has been alive for years. Just recently, we reported on a resurgence of rumors centered on the next generation of iPhones.
Indeed, in 2012, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued an inductive charging patent very similar to today’s. However, instead of the iPad’s Smart Cover, that patent involved the iPhone or iPod touch. Other wireless recharging chatter focused on MacBooks.
The number of rumors and various patents clearly indicate Apple knows wireless recharging is a feature consumers seek.
This latest idea of using the Smart Cover appears the most practical, given the iPad’s cover provides enough physical real estate to act as a collective inductive charging mat for all iDevices.
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Apple wants to get into social networking, but not as a rival to Facebook or Twitter. Instead, the iPhone maker envisions a way to better protect mobile users against spammers and stalkers.
Tuesday, the United States Patent and Trademark Office approved a 2010 application for a friend service of sorts which could underlie current social networks.
The patent titled “Apparatus and method for efficiently managing data in a social networking service” describes methods for maintaining three databases which oversee friends within a network, handles for out-of-network contacts and a third to log changes. Among the potential advantages: preventing a flood of friend requests and ignoring contact attempts by stalkers…
Apple’s U.S. Patent No. 8,396,932 how to ensure data consistency between friend service data records.
For example, Apple writes in one embodiment, a key may be generated for each update to friend state records, representing
each of the operations. The same key would be used to create an entry in a write-ahead log database, with each entry specifying the operation to be performed on the friend state records.
If the plurality of friend state records are successfully updated, then the entry in the write-ahead log database may be deleted. However, if the plurality of friend state records are not successfully completed, then the entry is not deleted from the write-ahead log database.
The friend state records associated with old entries in the write-ahead log database are checked for consistency and
inconsistent records are repaired. In addition, optimistic locking techniques may be used in one embodiment to improve performance of the friend service database.
In layman terms, “each time a user sends a request, their spammer count value is upped by 1 until a predefined threshold is reached,”AppleInsider writes. Similarly, each time you deny a friend request, the person’s “stalker count ” will increase by 1.
When a predetermined level is reach, further requests are ignored.
In a sign that Apple hopes its system will be used by larger social networks, the company will offer the system to developers who can then integrate it into mobile social networking apps, as well as desktop software.
The introduction of Apple’s enhanced social networking backend follows Ping, the 2010 music-focused social network that never got off the ground.
Ping’s 2010 introduction and the 2010 patent filing prompts some to question whether Apple’s database service might have been part of its attempt to build a Facebook rival or something entirely new.
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In a ‘how low can they go’ moment, both software giant Microsoft and the South Korean conglomerate Samsung have moved to patent the pinch-zoom concept that Apple popularized (and patented) on mobile devices with the introduction of the iPhone six years ago, as if Apple’s technology never existed.
Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs reportedly hit the roof after HTC in early 2010 launched a handset with pinch-to-zoom functionality, but the two companies recently settled their patent disputes. On the strength of its iPhone patent portfolio, Apple even forced Google to agree to disabling multitouch on early Android devices sold outside the United States.
Now, Apple claims a specific software implementation that’s different than that Google used in Jelly Bean, Android version 4.2. Be that as it may, it’s funny both Microsoft and Samsung patent filings now suggest pinch zooming was their invention…
“A new patent application published by the US Patent Office this week shows that Microsoft’s delusional engineers think that they’ve actually invented Pinch and Zoom as if Apple’s technology never existed,” notes the PatentlyApple blog.
The pinching motion is illustrated as two dotted line circles, which represent locations where the user is touching the touch screen, and simultaneously moving their fingers together. The application interprets this as a zoom-out indication.
The filing describes how users can zoom-out by indicating a pinching touch motion.
“The user can also switch to another viewing mode, a structure view, where structure of the document is displayed to the user, potentially at various zoom levels,” the Windows maker writes. “The user can zoom-out in the structure view also by providing a pinching touch motion.”
Even though Apple last year licensed its design patents to Microsoft with an anti-cloning agreement, pinch-zoom is a utility patent so it’s not covered by the terms of that agreement.
Apple openly indicated it is not keen on licensing its inventions to competitors, though some criticize the company for not doing so as if it was the industry’s practice (I’m not talking about standards-essential patents, of course).
Specifically, Apple wrote in court documents it has a policy against licensing competitors to practice its iPhone patents related to touchscreen heuristics, data tapping and real-time signal processing.
Apple’s filing reads:
Apple is innovative to the core. Its business model is all about distinguishing its products from the competition’s. [...] This business model of distinctive innovation does not work if competitors are free to make their products identical. That is why Apple has a policy against licensing [redacted].
PatentlyApple didn’t mince its words describing Microsoft’s patent:
Perhaps it was a “just-in-case” maneuver on the part of Microsoft’s legal team should Apple’s appeal fail. But on paper, it sure looks like the kind of legal maneuvering reserved for slime bags to me.
In another post, the blog writes that Samsung “is now trying to patent this all-important touchscreen feature as well.”
Samsung’s patent application, originally filed on August 30, 2012 and published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on March 7, 2013, describes a method for rendering a user interface with a size that “varies in response to a user’s manipulation of the display unit.”
It also describes “changing a type of information displayed in the UI in at least one stage in accordance with a state of the manipulated size of the UI.” In simpler terms, this is actually changing the size of the text or graphic by a pinching motion.
In PatentlyApple’s view, “with published applications from Microsoft and Samsung surfacing at the US Patent Office in the same week claiming that the Pinch & Zoom function is their own original invention is testament to how critical a feature this is for modern day touchscreen devices.”
It should also be noted that Samsung in December 2012 filed a complaint seeking to invalidate Apple’s prized pinch zoom patent. The USPTO responded by preliminary invalidating the invention until a thorough review is conducted, at which point the agency could either deny Apple the patent or completely reject all claims against it.
Apple thus far asserted the pinch-zoom patent against both Samsung and Google-owned Motorola. In October 2012, an ITC judge deemed the patent valid and ruled against Samsung. As for Motorola, a judge declared large parts of Apple’s patent invalid and identified only minor potential infringement on Motorola’s part.
When Steve Jobs introduced the original iPhone in January 2007, the pinch zoom gesture drew most oohs and aahs from the audience. Bringing his two fingers together and then spreading them apart to illustrate how simple and natural the gesture is, he then exclaimed “boy, have we patented it!”, knowing fully well Apple had a very special feature on its hands that everyone else was going to replicate.
The Verge ran a story attempting dispel the ‘Apple owns pinch-zoom’ myth, blaming it on the media. That report, however, didn’t leave a lasting impression on me. After all, the story does acknowledge Apple owns a patent on “a specific, limited pinch-to-zoom implementation” and author even incorrectly writes Apple hasn’t yet asserted the invention in any lawsuits.
Here’s a video of Jobs detailing the iPhone’s then all-new multitouch interface to the MacWorld Expo crowd in January 0f 2007.
By the way, just last week the USPTO granted another pinch-zoom related patent to Apple, in addition to 38 other patents covering automatic audio adjustments, integrated noise reduction technology, the iPad’s Smart Cover and more.
The invention, credited to Apple engineer Jeffrey Bernstein and filed in the fourth quarter of 2011, outlines a sensor panel having dynamically reconfigurable sensor size and shape based on a gesture detected by the panel.
Apple writes:
The device may determine that only certain portions of the panel needs to be adjusted to have a different pixel size corresponding to the estimated positions of the thumb and forefinger performing the gesture. Therefore, the device may decrease pixel sizes in selected portions of panel. Pixel sizes may be the same or different.
Apple also makes mention of the sensor which detects your hand as a proximity event.
At any rate, sounds to me Samsung and Microsoft are both attempting to lift Apple’s implementation of pinch zooming.
