Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) 
success in products like the iPhone and iPod has industry analysts and competitors, as well as faithful followers, speculating on what's to come in future product introductions. It also has them wondering and guessing about where the company is headed from a broader perspective.
Public patent filings are one source of information that happens to gather a lot of attention in this regard. Their value as indicators of imminent product introductions is often dubious -- innovative companies patent all sorts of ideas with applications that aren't obviously apparent or even practical from looking at the paperwork. However, the hazy insights they offer certainly haven't stopped interested observers from poring over the lengthy, often opaque and repetitive legalese that makes up your standard patent filing -- or speculating as to what it portends in terms of upcoming product releases.
Despite their questionable value in predicting new product introductions and enhancements, patent filings can provide a good sense of the areas Apple, and industry leaders in general, are focusing their sizable research and development resources. They can also indicate what types of technologies companies believe are worth the increasingly long and costly process of securing patent rights.
The Golden Touch
Innovative, sleek, simple, elegant and operationally efficient product and user interface design have all been Apple hallmarks. If recent patent filings are any indication, Apple doesn't intend to let its fans down in the near future.
Keen Apple observers have noted a theme of moving the user interface beyond the traditional keyboard. A scan of recent filings with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office shows Apple is developing OLED (organic light emitting diode) multi-tasking touch screen keyboards and building gesture recognition into touch screens. Similarly, rumors are circulating that Apple will build new multi-touch interfaces into Mac computers.
The raves that the iPhone's touch screen has drawn, the emergence of tablet PCs, and Apple's April acquisition of P.A. Semi have led to this year's rumors that Apple will introduce a touch screen tablet PC in 2008. That sentiment was further fueld with recently reported news that Apple will introduce a Mac Book Touch tablet PC come October. Apple is rumored to have gone so far as to contract production with Qanta or Asus -- take your pick.
Multimedia Portability
The iPhone and iPod have made Apple an innovator in portable multimedia devices. Ensuring that digital video, audio, voice and text data streams all hum along smoothly across and increasingly between such devices appears to be another focal point for Apple's R&D and patent applications.
The New York law firm of Ropes & Gray, on behalf of inventor Christopher D. McKillop of La Honda, Calif., with Apple as assignee filed a patent application last year for what is described as a "self-configuring" portable electronic device.
In addition to possibly resulting in performance enhancements right across Apple's portable device and computer product lines, the method may also result in enhancements to their wireless 
features and functionality.
According to the filing, the application is meant to patent "a method for self-configuring a portable electronic device ... comprising: operating the device to receive a plurality of compressed data streams, at least one of which is compressed in accordance with a selected codec that is not resident in the device; receiving the selected codec wirelessly; loading the received codec into memory; and compressing the received data stream based on the codec loaded into memory."
P2P Syncing
Along the same lines, small portable devices are invariably more network dependent, which leads to focusing R&D on developing new and better ways of Internet data stream distribution.
For example, Houston law firm of Wong, Cabello, Lutsch, Rutherford & Brucculeri last year filed a patent for a "Wide Area Peer-to-Peer Synching in a Decentralized Environment," with Apple as assignee.
The inventors, according to the filing, seek to patent "a system and method ... for synchronizing data between devices, and more particularly for synchronizing data between a plurality of peer-to-peer devices in a decentralized environment where no one device stores the most 'recent' or 'true' version of the data. Embodiments of the invention relate concepts of discovering synchronizing peers, communication between peers using special techniques, and using a way station concept as an aid for both discovery and synchronization between peers that are not simultaneously available."
Forward Looking Statements: A Cautionary Note
Though speculating on the nature and implications of patent filings by industry leaders such as Apple can be educational, rewarding and even fun, it's a bit like calling a bull or bear market in stocks: If you say it often enough, year in and year out, it will eventually come true.
In general, speculation based on patents doesn't provide a good indication of imminent, or even near future, product releases, according to JupiterResearch analyst Michael Gartenberg. "I almost never even begin to try and guess the nature of what they might try and do with a particular set of patents; in retrospect, people have been more wrong than right," he told MacNewsWorld.
"Apple, like many companies, is doing lots of interesting things. In many cases, Apple has applied for patents that people thought would result in imminent product releases, and they haven't panned out that way. ... Some are obvious as to how they can relate to particular products -- the iPhone or iPod for instance -- but they generally don't translate [into new product releases or enhancements] particularly well."
There are various reasons why Apple, along with other large industry leaders, may decide to file a particular patent application, commented Banner & Witcoff's Ross Dannenberg. "Companies file patents for multiple reasons, protecting technology built into flagship product launches being one example. ... Companies with research divisions -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) Fellows, for example -- they'll name top researchers as Fellows, and then they'll go off and do whatever research they want and IBM will pursue a patent filing and license it to other companies to commercialize that, irrespective of the field," he told MacNewsWorld.
"Apple's big enough that they're patenting more than just what they're going to commercialize," JupiterResearch's Gartenberg concurred.
'A Very Crowded Art'
What's generally more interesting and instructive about perusing patent filings from digital and information technology companies like Apple is the general sense of direction they can provide when it comes to where R&D capital is flowing, what's deemed worthy of protecting, and general industry trends, Gartenberg added. "Multi-touch and gesture [recognition], new ways of interacting with computers beyond the keyboard -- it's good for users to get that sense, something more than just particular new features and products."
Patents related to Internet networking are coming fast and furious these days, particular when it comes to multimedia content and portable/wireless technology, Dannenberg noted. "It's a very crowded art. ... People are going after very minute improvements over what's been done before. ... At the end of the day, a product like the iPod may be covered by 10 or 20 patents.
As Gartenberg points out, what Apple is patenting factors into observers' projections of what the company will look like in the future. For instance, in a May 2008 research report, "The Future of Apple, Inc.," Forrester Research analysts predict that "Apple will aim to become the hub of the digital home, offering eight key products and services to connect PCs and digital content to the HDTV (high-definition television)-stereo audio-visual infrastructure in consumers' homes. To fulfill this strategy, we predict that Apple will launch new products, re-engineer the Apple Store, and expand into in-home installation services."
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