Chalk up another one for Apple’s patent team: The U.S. Patent Office has granted Cupertino a patent for a multipoint touchscreen.

iLounge is reporting on the new patent (by way of website Patently Apple) entitled “Multipoint Touchscreen,” U.S. Patent No. 7,663,607. The patent appears to be intended for the iPad (and future iterations of same), since it covers “a larger, two-hand touchscreen.”

The summary of the patent describes “a transparent capacitive sensing surface that can sense multiple simultaneous touches and at distinct locations, similar to the technology seen in the recent announced iPad,” according to iLounge. “This allows the computer to react to the multiple touches at once, allowing for more advanced interation than possible on a single-touch sensing surface.”

The new patent, first filed on May 6, 2004, doesn’t grant Apple total domination over capacitive sensors, of course, but it will certainly make the competition frustrated as they try to find ways to work around it -- assuming they don’t want to pay Cupertino for borrowing the technology, that is.

The full patent description follows: “A touch panel having a transparent capacitive sensing medium configured to detect multiple touches or near touches that occur at the same time and at distinct locations in the plane of the touch panel and to produce distinct signals representative of the location of the touches on the plane of the touch panel for each of the multiple touches is disclosed.”

(Image courtesy of Engadget)