Ahead of the suspected tablet announcement this morning comes news from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that Apple has been granted 13 new patents for various products, including one squarely aimed at the center of today's attention.

Patently Apple has the full details on this week’s newly granted patents for Apple, with the crown jewel among them being “Proximity Detector for Tablets” which is likely to take part in today’s media event in San Francisco at 10 am PST.

The proximity sensor patent is important because it senses the distance between the device and the person using it. “The proximity detection system is configured to detect when an object such as a finger (or stylus) comes in close proximity to the computing device,” Patently Apple explains. “Proximity sensing differs from touch sensing in that there is no contact. The sensing occurs above the surface of the housing. For example, the proximity detection system detects when an object such as a finger is placed in space above, and not in contact with, a surface of one or more regions of the computing device. The regions may include any side or any portion of a side of the computing device.”

Patently Apple has a page dedicated to all of the patents that Apple has filed in relation to the fabled tablet device, which in an interesting read to get a last-minute peek into what the future might hold in a few short hours.

Also on deck with this week’s patents are “Video Conferencing System,” which was instrumental to the company’s iChat software; “Automatic Detection of Channel Bandwidth” which promises to help Apple products better manage available bandwidth; “Color Management System,” which promises improvements with managing color between scanners, cameras, displays and the computer; and an industrial design win for the third generation iPod nano.

(Image courtesy of Patently Apple)