Apple granted three new iPhone input patents

The US Patent and Trademark Office published several of Apple’s patent approvals today, all of which relate to different aspects of the iPhone’s functionality. The first patent that has been approved deals with organization of the iPhone’s interface, mainly to reduce the clutter of adding too many visual elements to a document. The patent indicates the use of nested interface elements, for example, clicking a button to bring up a menu with operations that the user may perform.

The second patent approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office demonstrates user input on the iPhone’s touch keyboard and how the iPhone highlights the letter that is pressed, as well as how long the button stays highlighted.

The third patent relates to touch gestures which can select, as well as delete items using the iPhone’s touch screen. The process recognizes gestures in the order of first editing a list, selecting an item for deletion, and then finally being prompted on whether or not to delete the item.

Check out the three iPhone patent applications at MacNN.