Apple has won several patents applications by the US Patent & Trademark Office. Two involve authentication and indium tin oxide layer forming, while several others are for iPod designs. Following is a summary of each.

Patent number 8051097 involves a system and method for authentication using a shared table and sorting exponentiation. Disclosed are systems, computer-implemented methods, and computer-readable media for authentication using a shared table. The method receives an authentication challenge from a first entity including an accumulator with an initial value, lists of elements in a shared table, and a list of sorting algorithms, each sorting algorithm is associated with one of the lists of elements and modified to include embedded instructions operating on the accumulator.

The method then generates a temporary table for each list of elements in the shared table by copying elements from the shared table as indicated in each respective list of elements, each temporary table being associated with one sorting algorithm in the list of sorting algorithms. The method sorts each generated temporary table with the associated sorting algorithm, thereby updating the accumulator with the embedded instructions. Finally, the method transmits the updated accumulator to the first entity for verification. The inventors are Pierre Betouin, Mathieu Ciet and Augustin J. Farrugia.

Patent number 8049862 is for indium tin oxide layer forming. Per the patent, a layer of material, such as crystalline indium tin oxide (ITO), is formed on top of a substrate by heating the material to a high temperature, while a temperature increase of the substrate is limited such that the temperature of the substrate does not exceed a predetermined temperature. For example, a layer including amorphous ITO can be deposited on top of the substrate, and the amorphous layer can be heated in a surface anneal process using radiation while limiting substrate temperature.

Another process can pass electrical current through the amorphous ITO. In another process, the substrate is passed through a high-temperature deposition chamber quickly, such that a portion of a layer of crystalline ITO is deposited, while the temperature increase of the substrate is limited. The inventors are Lili Huang and John Z. Zhong.

Apple has won design patents for the six gen iPod nano (patent number D647919), the fourth generation iPod shuffle (patent number D647921) and the fifth generation iPod nano with a click wheel (patent number D64876).

The company has also won design patents for an iPod docking station (patent number 8050714) and the Mini DisplayPort (patent number 8047880).

-- Dennis Sellers