Late Friday afternoon Apple was granted 8 design patents from the Hong Kong Patent Office that in total represented more than 20 images relating to Maps.
The imagery dictates that the designs specifically relate to CarPlay maps or maps on your iPhone relating to navigation. The information found in the design patents are scant as usual. The patent numbers included in this report cover 1915139.2M001 to .2M008.
All that the design patents convey is that the designs relate to “Graphical user interfaces for electronic device” which lacks any specificity. All of the design patents were commonly filed under Locarno Classification 14 – 04 which covers “Screen Displays and Icons.”
Unlike “patent applications” that provide the public with an abstract, summary and details of an invention, design patents published around the world are limited to only providing the public with design patent figures. No additional specifics of the design are made available.
CarPlay / Navigation Map Design Patents
The first design patent 1915139.2M008 relates to a moveable icon that includes a live binoculars icon that could double as a search and/or navigational tool. That’s what it looks like, as there’s no explanation to confirm it. Maybe you’ll see it as a headlights icon.
You can also see in patent #1915139.2M007 below that the icon is able to move in any direction while driving.
You can see in patents 191539.2M003, 04, 05 and 06 below, outlines of buildings with identifiers in various colors that points to the kinds of stores available and in 2M005 we’re able to see street markers of the road ahead to assist or guide the driver. All of the designs are presented in vertical view for an iPhone. Whether this is a part of street view and look around is unknown at this time.
WWDC20 – CarPlay
After failing to find these kinds of map images on Google, I checked out Apple’s new CarPlay sessions for developers hoping to find imagery matching the newly granted design patents and couldn’t find anything close.
You could learn more about CarPlay’s brand new Templates for developers in this session here. Last year there was only one template to work with for ‘Navigation.” Apple greatly expanded templates for CarPlay to now include: Audio; Communication; EV Charging; Parking; and Quick food ordering as presented in the screenshot below.
This news was originally published at patentlyapple.com