Filed under: Apple
New Apple Patents
MacNN reports on the latest Apple patents, published today by the US Patent & Trademark Office. The new patents include a centralized printing queue, a variable-sized icon GUI, a thermal-contact arrangement between chips and heat sinks, and an audio battery status patent. This last may provide audible status information for the upcoming iPhone. If reading about patents is your thing head on over and check these out. MacNN provides links to the actual patent filings.
It always surprises me that certain things that seem fairly brainless and obvious like "monitor a device condition, obtain an audio snippet based on the device condition, output the audio snippet" are patentable, but I am not a lawyer.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Lima said 2:09PM on 4-05-2007
The idea behind this is to void brainless companies like M$ (lately known as MeTooCrosoft) and others from copying Apple.
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Aron Trimble said 2:14PM on 4-05-2007
Variable icon sizes... could this hint at the oh-so-desired resolution independence for leopard?
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Brauly said 2:16PM on 4-05-2007
While it doesn't apply to this directly. There was an article not too long ago on Gamasutra about Patent laws and how they are so screwy and tries to explain why.
\http://gamasutra.com/features/20070227/sirlin_01.shtml
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Danny said 4:08PM on 4-05-2007
The resolution-independence is already official. Look here: http://www.tuaw.com/2006/08/10/the-real-leopard-show-stopper-developer-goodies-that-werent-on
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Marky said 5:49PM on 4-05-2007
Linux already has variable icon sizes in GNU Gnome. How can Apple be allowed to patent something already out there and in use?
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franko said 8:56PM on 4-05-2007
variable icon sizes, a multi-touch component?
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