• Apple Did Not Infringe Five Nokia Patents

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Gadgets, News, Nokia, Patents, Rants & Raves No Responses

    Nokia sued Apple in May 2010, claiming the company infringed five of Nokia’s patents. The patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption and are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in 2007, Nokia alleged. Nokia’s statement in May 2010 about the lawsuit:

    Nokia has been the leading developer of many key technologies in mobile devices” said Paul Melin, General Manager, Patent Licensing at Nokia. “We have taken this step to protect the results of our pioneering development and to put an end to continued unlawful use of Nokia’s innovation.

    Now, Reuters reports that the International Trade Commision has ruled that Apple in fact did not violate any of Nokia’s patents.

    A judge at the International Trade Commission, which hears many patent cases, said that Apple did not violate the Nokia patents.

  • New iPad ‘Smart Bezel’ Patent Emerged

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, News, Patents, Rants & Raves, Tech. No Responses

    A patent from Apple detailing a new ‘Smart Bezel’ feature for the iPad emerged. This new bezel is said to be a touch-sensitive gesture area surrounding the iPad’s display. Now, with the iPad being rumored to lose the stationary home button, it would make sense that Apple would implement something similar to what is found in the ‘Smart Bezel’ patent.

    Adding credence to this Patently Apple has uncovered yet another patent relating to the smart bezel and this patent features a tablet device with the new bezel, but the drawing does not include the home button.

    The patent describes some possible features for the bezel such as double-tapping the bezel to turn the iPad on and off, touching the bezel in certain places with certain amounts of pressures to the control brightness and volume, and touching the bezel in a certain way to lock and unlock the display.

    We think that this ‘Smart Bezel’ along with the new iPad gestures Apple is testing in iOS 4.3 would be a good replacement for their physical home button in mobile iOS products.