A plethora of Apple patents have appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. Following is a summary of each.

Patent number D617,334 is for a graphical user interface or a portion thereof. In other words, the iPhone OS interface (now iOS). The inventor is Imran Chaudhri.

Patent number D617,339 is for the ornamental design for an icon of a display screen. The inventors are Bas Ording and Imran Chaudhri.

Patent number 7,734,721 involves a system and method for passive detection and context sensitive notification of upgrade availability for computer information. The invention monitors upgrade availability for computer information on a user's computer and allows the user to determine which of the available upgrades will be downloaded to the user's computer and installed. The upgrade availability for computer information on the user's computer is monitored in the background, without user-intervention when the user connects to a network, such as the Internet. If any such upgrades are available, a flag is set to notify the user of such upgrades. The user is notified of any available upgrades when computer information is accessed for which an upgrade is available, and given a choice of whether or not to download the available upgrade(s). The downloaded upgrade(s) may then be installed by an installation means. In this manner, the present invention allows for the user to download only those upgrades desired by the user. The inventors are Gordon R. Meyer, Albert R. Howard and Wayne Loofbourrow.

Patent number 7,734,721 is for an audio user interface for computing devices. An audio user interface that generates audio prompts that help a user interact with a user interface of a device is disclosed. One aspect of the present invention pertains to techniques for providing the audio user interface by efficiently leveraging the computing resources of a host computer system. The relatively powerful computing resources of the host computer can convert text strings into audio files that are then transferred to the computing device. The host system performs the process intensive text-to-speech conversion so that a computing device, such as a hand-held device, only needs to perform the less intensive task of playing the audio file. The computing device can be, for example, a media player such as an MP3 player, a mobile phone, or a personal digital assistant. The inventor is Davang K. Naik.

Patent number 7,734,048 involves a crytographic system using chaotic dynamics. A chaotic system is used to generate a public key and an adjustable back door from a private key. The public key is distributed and can be used in a public key encryption system. The invention can also be used for authentication purposes. The adjustable back door of the invention can be used in conjunction with the public key to derive the private key. The degree of difficulty involved in deriving the private key is dependent on the adjustable back door. That is the value of the back door can be adjusted to vary the difficulty involved in deriving the private key. The inventor is Richard E. Crandall.

Patent number 7,735,120 is for server computer issued credential authentification. A method for authenticating computers is disclosed. The method comprises issuing a credential from a first computer to a second computer. When the second computer authenticates to the first computer, the second computer transmits the credential and a first challenge to the first computer. The first computer determines whether the credential is valid, computes a first response to the first challenge, and generates a second challenge. The first computer transmits the first response and the second challenge to the second computer. The second computer determines whether the first response is valid and computes a second response to the second challenge. The second computer transmits the second response to the first computer in order to verify and authenticate the computers. The inventors are Leland A. Wallace and David M. Rourke.

Patent number 7,735,020 involves a method and apparatus for determining font attributes. In one embodiment of the present invention, a method to determine a font attribute includes: determining a first number and a second number; receiving input resulting from a sliding (or other repositioning method) of a thumb of a slider to a position; and determining a value for the font attribute from the position relative to the slider and the first and second numbers. In one example according to this aspect, the font attribute is one of: a) font size; b) boldness; c) italic angle; d) baseline offset; e) line spacing; and f) character spacing. At least one of the first number and the second number is adjusted in one example, when the thumb is pushed against one end of the slider. In another example according to this aspect, at least one of the first number and the second number is updated when a first input is received (e.g., selecting a value from a list, typing in a value; or pushing a thumb against one end of a slider), which determines the at least one of the first and second number. The inventor is Imran Chaudhri.

Patent number 7,735,003 is for a computer system integrating different data types into a single environment. A system for viewing and manipulating information of various data types within a single document in an integrated computer system environment is disclosed. Each data type is maintained within a dataset. Datasets comprise logical information of a common data type along with the functions or processing logic to view and manipulate that data type. The logical types of information managed by datasets in the preferred embodiment include graphical objects, blocks of text, spreadsheet cells, and database records. Datasets also manage frames. Frames provide a means by which datasets are viewed and manipulated. Each dataset is responsible for managing the display of information inside one of its frames. Significantly, the present invention provides a logical independence between the information contained in a dataset and the manner in which the information is viewed and manipulated (i.e. frames). This independence provides a significant improvement in the ability to manipulate various types of information. Any type and number of datasets can be combined together into a single document and saved in a file system as a document file. The inventors are Robert Audrey Hearn and Scott D. Holdaway.

Patent number 7,734,875 involves cache management using historical access information. A caching manager calculates cache priorities for accessed items, including items not currently stored in the cache. The cache manager determines an item's cache priority as a function of the item's access frequency, retrieval cost and size. The cache manager dynamically updates cache priorities as items are accessed. When the cache is full and a non-cached item is accessed, the cache manager uses cache priorities to determine whether to overwrite a cached item with the non-cached accessed item. If the accessed item has a lower cache priority than all of the items in the cache, then the non-cached item is not stored in the cache. If any item in the cache has a lower cache priority than the accessed item, then the cache manager stores the accessed item in the cache, overwriting the cached item with the lowest cache priority. The inventor is Arnaud Hervas.

Patent number 7,734,855 is for gap count analysis for the P1349a BUS. A method of optimizing communication over a high-speed serial bus by minimizing the delay between packets transmitted over the bus is disclosed. The method comprises: calculating the round trip delay between PHYs connected on the bus by pinging; a bus manager sending a configuration packet to all PHYs connected on the bus, the configuration packet containing a minimum gap_count parameter value; and all PHYs connected on the bus sending packets over the bus using the minimum gap_count parameter value as a delay between packets. The inventor is Jerrold Von Hauck.