Today the US Patent and Trademark Office posted 20 new patents granted to Apple Inc, two of which are valuable patents related to the iPhone, iPad, and iOS. Patents like these have been becoming more important as mobile device manufacturers take each other to court.
According a report from Patently Apple, the three most noteworthy of the patents include one for integrated touch screen technology that allows the display to be “thinner, brighter and require less power” and require less parts to manufacture, another is related to the “Voicemail Manager” for iPhone, and the last appears to be related to “improved installation, retention and removal of hardware components” in Mac Pro or other tower-like personal computers.
Perhaps the most notable of the three is the “Integrated Touch Screen” patent. Below is a snippet of Apple’s summary from Patently Apple.
Another key patent is the “Voicemail Manager” Method & GUI for Accessing Voicemail on Devices. It’s hard to argue that Apple didn’t completely revolutionize voicemail on smartphones with their visual voicemail on the iPhone in comparison to the clunky implementations before it. This patent is something Apple is certainly glad to have as the smartphone patent wars heat up. A snippet from the patent from the patent below:
Lastly, the patent for “Component Retention Mechanism for a Tower Computer”. Apple explains:
