Apple Wins Patent For Text Censoring

Apple has been awarded 18 patents by the US Patent and Trademark Office, several relating to multi-touch technology, but others to do with censoring text messages.

The patents are related to various ways of interacting with mobile devices, and was awarded on 12 October.

They were filed for on dates ranging from 2003 through 2008.

Objectionable Content

The content of the patents ranges from describing ornamental designs on the keyboard and dock, to a method for synching three or more devices.

One patent, filed in January 2008, describes the ability to block the receipt of text messages that contain objectionable content, or to receive messages based on set criteria. For example, states the patent abstract, “These embodiments might … require that a certain number of Spanish words per day be included in emails for a child learning Spanish.”

More pertinent, however, several of the patents relate to multi-touch technology – the way of navigating with finger swipes, swirls and pinches that’s inherent to the iPhone experience. Apple launched its first iPhone in June 2007, offering what was for most consumers a first interaction with multi-touch technology.

One patent, filed in December 2006, is for a “portable electronic device with multi-touch input” that “performs one or more operations … based on the one or more multi-touch contacts and/or motions.”

Another, filed in February 2007, identifies and classifies the various ways that “intuitive hand configurations and motions [enable the] unprecedented integration of typing, resting, pointing, scrolling, 3D manipulation, and handwriting into a versatile, ergonomic computer input device.”

Still another, describing multi-touch sensing methods, details that they can be included in interfaces for devices such as a “desktop, tablet, notebook, and handheld computers, personal digital assistants, media players, and mobile telephones.”

Legal Impact?

For now it’s unclear how the awarding of the patents will affect several patent-related lawsuits that Apple is currently engaged in.

This includes lawsuits with direct rivals Nokia, Motorola and HTC, as well as with Kodak.