patents

St Clair Intellectual Property Consultants is suing Apple over claims that the company is infringing on patents it owns relating to digital still cameras. The company apparently has a history of patent litigation and Apple looks to be just the next target on the list, as Apple currently uses still digital cameras in the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G. The iPhone 3GS, iPod nano, and Mac computers all include digital cameras capable of capturing video.

It's not terribly exciting or unexpected, but it's part of the due process. In its 10-K annual report (PDF) filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and posted yesterday, Apple noted that it plans to "vigorously" defend itself from a lawsuit filed last week by Nokia claiming infringement of multiple cellular and Wi-Fi patents by Apple's iPhone. Nokia's complaint alleges that these patents are essential to one or more of the GSM, UMTS and 802.11 wireless communications standards, and that the Company has the right to license these patents from plaintiff on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory ("FRAND") terms and conditions

You can't please all the people all the time. In a suit filed today in U.S. District Court, Nokia claims that Apple has violated 10 of Nokia's wireless technology patents. According to The Unofficial Apple Weblog, the company says the patents "relate to technologies fundamental to making devices," that are compatible with the GSM, UMTS, or 3G WCDMA, and wireless LAN standards.

A recently-published Apple patent suggests that the company is developing a more sophisticated method of telling whether a device such as an iPod or iPhone has been abused by its owner. According to AppleInsider, the patent, entitled “Consumer Abuse Detection System and Method,” describes a system of water, thermal, shock, and other sensors that may detect and record potential device abuse, while at the same time disabling certain components such as screens, hard drives, processor memory, and/or removable media in order to protect them from damage.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a sizable stack of approved Apple patent applications this morning, several of which dealt with software for the iPhone. The different patent applications paint an interesting picture, showing that they are considering things like object and face detection and recognition, text message filtering and interface changes, and voice output customization.

The U.S. Trademark and Patent Office published an application from Apple recently on the use of alternate methods for authenticating the user of an iPhone using stealthy techniques like recognition of fingerprints or even facial features. The document, titled "Embedded Authentication Systems in an Electronic Device", also includes an unexpected representation of a jailbroken iPhone that has caused some controversy.

Back when the application for Apple's patent number 7,479,949, (a.k.a. "The iPhone Patent" which covers the bulk of Apple's intellectual property relating to the iPhone) was first published by the U.S. Patent Office, a few features were found not yet present in the iPhone, most notably video recording and video conferencing. Information Week's Alexander Wolfe has taken a second look and dug up a few more details about the possibility.

The US Patent and Trademark Office has announced that as of January 20, 2009, Apple officially has a patent on the iPhone as a touch screen device, it's user interface and the software that powers it. The title is 'Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics'.

A new patent has been released by the United States Patent and Trademark Office has released a new patent application filed by Apple showing that they are considering using an ambient sound sensor in the iPhone to automatically adjust its ringer volume.

Apple hosted their quarterly earnings conference call for Q1 of 2009, during which Apple COO (and current stand-in for CEO Steve Jobs) answered a lot of questions people have had about the iPhone and Apple's direction with the current state of the economy and Jobs not currently at the reigns. During the call they touched on topics including the possibility of a lower-cost iPhone, their move to get the iPhone at Walmart, and their stance on protecting their intellectual property rights.