Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from Macworld UK. Visit Macworld UK’s blog page for the latest Mac news from across the Atlantic.
Apple has just been awarded patents for a number of not-so-new Apple technologies.
First up, Apple has been granted a patent for the current design of the MacBook Air. It is unknown whether a new design of the MacBook Air will debut at Apple’s “Back to the Mac” event on Wednesday. (Find out by following Macworld’s live coverage of the event.) That patent was originally filed in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Apple also won a patent for the Quartz Extreme Compositor. Quartz Extreme was introduced in Mac OS X 10.2.
This patent was originally filed in the fourth quarter of 2006. According to Patently Apple, Quartz Extreme was first presented at a Seybold Conference in 2002.
Apple now owns a patent for iChat Video Conferencing, specifically an “architecture for establishing multi-participant video conferences.” That patent was originally filed in the second quarter of 2005.
Patently Apple describes an number of other patents granted on Tuesday, including a patent for the compass icon as seen on the iPhone.