Displaying items by tag: USPTO

Apple has submitted a request for two new patents that based on collected information to automatically adjust battery consumption. Apple's iPhone will continue to monitor your habits when you use the phone, when you use it the most, and when it is idle. Also it will monitor when you charge it and how long do you do it, do you only cherge it when the battery is low, or hold it connected to the charger all day because there's a socket.

In the long running battle between Samsung an Apple there is new twist. It seems that an appeals court would like a lower court to reconsider the Apple request for a permanent injunction on Samsung products based on three utility patents. Now, while having a court reconsider something is not unusual it is interesting to note that the patents in question constitute a very small portion of the products in question. It also comes not long after the US Administration blocked a similar ban won by Samsung against Apple for patent infringement, but upheld one requested by Apple against Samsung.

What’s this??? A US Senator, John Cornyn (R-TX), is working to introduce a patent reform law that will help to limit the number of suits created by Patent Trolls. Called the “Patent Abuse Reduction Act of 2013” the bill looks to be a step in the right direction at least when considering Patent Holding companies. The problem is that this bill does little to stop or slow down filing obvious, vague, or patents covered by prior art which many of these suits stem from.

Apple once again filled some applications for patent rights, this time they have two application that describes a curved batteries that can be easily integrated in portable electronic devices.

New Apple patent shows a method of finding and accessing capabilites of a car with the help of mobile devices and Bluetooth.

It appears that Apple has a really good friend over at the US Patent and Trademark office. After rejecting a trademark for the iPad Mini based on legitimate objections the USPTO has withdrawn those and is granting the trademark with a few minor limitations on how Apple will be using the word Mini. Originally the objections were that the Trademark was not descriptive enough so it was out. Now 7 days later all of those objections are gone.

The U.S. Patent Office rejected Apple's request for registration of the name iPad mini. The reason is because the name does not describe the product well enough. Apple has already registered the name iPad, and the addition of the suffix "mini" is almost no different from the original name, according to the patent office.

In the latest new patent that has been granted to Apple is a description of the advanced ways to manage incoming calls. The patent titled "Dynamic Context-Based Auto-Response Generation" describes methods for "smart" management of incoming calls, depending on whether we are talking with someone else or are simply unavailable.

Yet another busy day at Apple, as they acquire another patent on something pretty ridiculous. Animation flipping pages in applications is now owned by Apple. The U.S. Patent Office granted Apple a patent for this animation.

In following a trial as big as the Samsung V Apple trial there are small things that popup over the course of a case this large and this public. We have already found out that both Samsung and Apple tend to release the number of units “shipped” to investors rather than the number of units actually sold. This is not an uncommon item as when product is shipped to a company like Best Buy or Target they are still listed as a unit “sold” for many companies. But there are other items that come out as well; one of these is only visible if you look closely. This is the strength of the actual claim(s) involved. Although both sides often object just to make things annoying for the other what we have noticed is that Apple appears to want considerably more real data and evidence blocked than Samsung.