Lodsys recently attempted to get a percentage of transactional income from a number of iOS developers, citing a patent on in-app purchases. Apple has subsequently -- and loudly -- told Lodsys to go home, but the whole ordeal's left us with patents on the brain. Patent applications are filed for every single thing that could possibly be patented, so they can give you a glimpse into the future plans of your favourite company. This is done for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that if they don't patent it, a competitor -- or patent holding company/troll -- might file for, and be awarded, the patent, leaving a company in the unfortunate position of having to pay to use their own invention. When they announced the iPhone in 2007, Apple proudly boasted of filing for 200 patents for the device, promising to aggressively defend them.
Patents are also interesting: if you're into crazy-high-tech, look no further than descriptions of gadgets that might not exist for years (if at all) to scratch your itch. Since Apple is one of the most innovative tech companies around, and they have a building full of lawyers merrily filing patent applications pretty well non-stop, checking up on what they're up to is a natural. So how do you do it?
If you want to look for patents filed by Apple -- or anyone -- the simplest thing to do is go to the US Patent and Trademark Office website, and search away. Go to http://patft.uspto.gov/, click on either Basic or Advanced Search, and have at it. The site's pretty plain, but on the plus side, it features reams of highly technical text written by engineers. If you like the nitty gritty, or you want some reading to help you fall asleep, check out the USPTO website.
If you don't want to make reading patent filings your new full-time job, you can just wait until a juicy Apple patent surfaces in the press. Given how many applications they make, and how many good ideas they have, this happens pretty frequently. Once a juicy Apple patent is discovered, it typically gets traction in the press, getting covered by all of your favourite news sites, like Mac|Life. Noteworthy patents, or ones that seem so outlandish that you simply have to talk about them, get all kinds of punditry, so if you're only looking to hear about the best of the best, just keep reading us, or other sites like 9to5Mac, and Wired. You'll get the benefit of keeping up to date with Apple's filings without needing to read hundreds of pages of technical documents, plus you'll get some expert commentary.
If you don't want to sift through the USPTO, but you do want to get more than just the top of the pile, then you'll want to go to Patently Apple. This site is a clearing-house for patents filed by Apple, and even though the site appears to get a good amount of traffic, only a small amount of the patents they cover make it through to the mainstream.
And, really, when we talk about Apple patents at MacLife, most of the time it's because Patently Apple has done all of the hard work of uncovering the patent, and reading it. And that's most often a hard, thankless task.
