iPhone Patent: A Guide To How The iPhone Was Built

iPhone Patent: A Guide To How The iPhone Was Built



With a gadget like the iPhone, it would probably come as no surprise that it has plenty of patents attached to it. Aside from its design and accompanying image and logos, there are also patents for its features and uses. But 200 patents? When there are too many of these, you're probably thinking, 'Hey, is the iPhone an invention?'

Innovation But Not An Invention

Although the iPod is officially a success, let's remember that Apple was not the inventor of MP3 players. What they did was make technology look good and usable, which probably shows why they gave so much thought to the design and functionality of their iPhone. As for the innovation part, of course Apple would want to patent their contribution. After all, nobody knew how the iPhone would appear or how it would work.

Getting To Know The iPhone

Probably the best way to learn about something is to get a copy of its list of patents and find out from the bottom up how it works. The iPhone's patent application with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, for one, will show everything from how the iPhone can be unlocked to how to gesture to operate the phone.

For example, simply running your finger over the iPhone won't always work. The patent reveals that are a pre-defined set of gestures required. A user will need to use these gestures to lock, unlock, drag, pan, scroll up or down, zoom in or out. Swiping and sweeping at certain points on the display, for example, will result in different commands.

Another significant patent of the iPhone is the sensor technology it utilizes on its phone. This allows the phone to change orientation during manipulation and to sense if the user is holding it next to the ear. This is a rather controversial patent and not something Quantum is happy about. Quantum is using the patented charge transfer technology, which is similar to the way the iPhone sensing technology works.

More Patents Coming

With a gadget as capable as the iPhone, expect more patent applications to be filed. The most recent was a patent to use the iPhone for the display of lyrics, which probably means iPhone karaoke may be in our future. The patent includes the identification of the audio file to be played and the retrieval of the related lyrics file, among others.

If you want to see a complete description of the iPhone patent, check the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office publication online. The technical description of the iPhone will let you imagine the device piece by piece and see how Apple intended the phone to work.

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