Title:  Computing device

Type:  issued design patent

Patent number:  D537,817

Issue date:  March 6, 2007

Filing date:  June 19, 2006 (priority to December 23, 2004)

Link to PDF:    (4 pages)

AIPW Summary:  This is a design patent for the Mac mini enclosure. The front slot and the rear ports are not part of the design (that’s why they’re shown with dashed lines).

Title:  Method and apparatus for establishing a secure connection

Patent application publication number:  20070050625

Publication date:  March 1, 2007

Filing date:  October 3, 2006 (priority to June 22, 2005)

Link to PDF:    (15 pages)

AIPW Summary:  A system for establishing a secure connection with a peer device (a “peer device” can be a client or server in a client-server system or a peer in a peer-to-peer system). Each peer creates its own digital certificate, and the certificates are sent to other trusted peers. An unauthenticated connection is initiated with the target peer device, and the device is checked to see if it recognizes the target peer device as a trusted device. If so, then a secure connection is made. If not, then the device queries the user to determine whether the peer device is a trusted device, and can then establish a secure connection. An example of this system is given as Apple’s Bonjour technology.

Title:  Method and apparatus for waking up a sleeping system

Patent application publication number:  20070050645

Publication date:  March 1, 2007

Filing date:  August 23, 2005

Link to PDF:    (11 pages)

AIPW Summary:  A system for waking up a target system over a LAN. A remote system creates a wake up packet that is sent to a “relay agent” on the LAN where the desired system is located via an upper layer protocol. The relay agent then sends a different wake up packet to the desired system via a lower layer protocol. The different protocols are needed because when a system is in a sleep state, it cannot respond to higher layer protocol commands, but can respond to lower layer protocol commands, such as basic Ethernet commands. Various combinations of the two wake up packets are described, including using DHCP and IP.

The generic term for this technology is “Wake on LAN”. It is also known by the term “Magic Packet” (a trademark of AMD). See the AMD White Paper on this technology for more info; link is to a PDF document.

Title:  Docking station for hand held electronic devices

Patent application publication number:  20070047198

Publication date:  March 1, 2007

Filing date:  August 24, 2005 (related to an application filed on April 25, 2003)

Link to PDF:    (19 pages)

AIPW Summary:  This is for the physical construction of the iPod dock, and specifically to the main dock component with a variety of inserts to allow a single dock to accept devices of various sizes and shapes. See Figures 3A, 4A-4B, and 6 for some good views of the dock in various states of configuration.

There’s not really much to say about this application. Once you’ve seen an iPod dock, you’ll understand what’s going on. The claims are directed to the dock with a removable insert with a “basin” to accommodate an iPod.

Title: Housing of an electronic device formed by doubleshot injection molding

Patent application publication number: 20070048470

Publication date: March 1, 2007

Filing date: August 16, 2005

Link to PDF: (17 pages)

AIPW Summary: A method for making a plastic device (the first generation iPod shuffle is shown as a particular example) using a doubleshot injection molding process. The problem with existing molding processes is that there generally has to be some angled interior portion to be able to easily remove the plastic from the mold. When making small devices, such as electronic devices, the angled interior portion uses up valuable space. This invention is best understood by looking at Figure 8 and paragraphs 0074-0075, where you can easily see the difference between the two types of molding processes. Note how the doubleshot injection process allows for thinner walls while generally maintaining the interior volume. Without all the dimensions, it’s not easy to compare the volumes of the two devices shown in Figure 8, but the right side (top) interior dimension is 5.8.

Another example use of doubleshot injection molding is to create thin layers of different colors (see paragraph 0010).