Apple Wins 67 Patents today covering the Steve Jobs Theater, Quantum Dot Technology and 3D Sensing for TrueDepth Camera

Last October Patently Apple posted a report covering some great photos of the Steve Jobs Theater where the iPhone X was first introduced. Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a design patent for the Exterior of the Steve Jobs Theater.

Highlighting a few of Today's Granted Patents

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 67 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we briefly touch on four of those patents as follows:

01: Backlight dimming control for a display utilizing quantum dots

Apple's granted patent relates to quantum dot backlights for use in displays and processes for controlling the dimming of quantum dot backlights are provided. The backlight can include an LED (e.g., a blue LED) configured to emit a light through a sheet of quantum dots.

One of the inventors of granted patent 10,062,334 is Jean-Jacques Drolet, Head of Technology Scouting at OSRAM Opto Semiconductors. Drolet worked on five generations of the iMac display. The question becomes: Is utilizing quantum dots the secret behind Apple's sharp Retina displays for iMacs or is this something that's still in the works?

02: Generation of patterned radiation

Apple's granted patent 10,063,835 generally relates to systems and methods for electronic imaging, and specifically to methods of illumination for enhancing the quality of captured images. The invention relates specifically to projection of patterned light in a 3D sensing system, the principles of the present invention may similarly be applied to enhance the performance of other projection-based imaging systems. Because the imaging system uses vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) diodes, it's related to Apple's TrueDepth camera for Face ID and beyond.

03: Dynamic master assignment in distributed wireless audio system for thermal and power mitigation

04: Point-to-Point Ad Hoc Voice Communication

Apple's granted patent 10,064,233 covers an advanced Wi-Fi Direct capable communications headset. With such a headset you could be at a busy conference or trade show with colleagues, as noted in FIG. 1 below, who are visiting different company product booths at the same time and still be able to communicate with each other cutting out the noise of the crowd. You could review our original 2016 patent report on this invention here.

Patently Apple wraps up this week's granted patent report with the traditional listing of the remaining granted patents that were issued to Apple today.