Several Apple patents have popped up at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Among them is an application for a patent for an user interface for a mobile device.

In general, one aspect of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include the actions of receiving a touch input to access an application management interface on a mobile device; presenting an application management interface; receiving one or more inputs within the application management interface including an input to install a particular application; installing the selected application; and presenting the installed application.

Here's Apple's summary of the invention: "This specification describes technologies relating to user interfaces for mobile devices. In general, one aspect of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include the actions of receiving a touch input to access an application management interface on a mobile device; presenting an application management interface; receiving one or more inputs within the application management interface including an input to install a particular application; installing the selected application; and presenting the installed application. Other embodiments of this aspect include corresponding systems, apparatus, and computer program products.

"These and other embodiments can optionally include one or more of the following features. Presenting the application management interface further includes presenting a menu portion and a display portion. The display portion includes one or more application objects corresponding to respective applications, each application object presenting information about the respective application.

"The menu portion includes multiple tabs, each tab providing access to particular features of the application management interface. Receiving one or more user inputs includes receiving a selection of a particular application object. The method further includes, in response to the selection, transitioning the display portion to present additional information about the selected application. Presenting additional information includes presenting one or more reviews of the selected application.

"The selected application object is an application update object associated with an update to an application previously installed on the mobile device. Installing the selected application includes presenting a placeholder object on a display of the mobile device, the placeholder object including an indicator of installation progress. The method further includes receiving payment information from a user to purchase the particular application. The mobile device includes a multi-touch-sensitive display.

"In general, one aspect of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in systems that include a processor and a user interface for providing interaction with a user, the user interface including a display portion including one or more application objects corresponding to respective applications, each application object presenting information about the respective application, and a menu portion including multiple tabs, each tab providing access to particular features of the application management interface. Other embodiments of this aspect include corresponding methods, apparatus, and computer program products.

"Particular embodiments of the invention can be implemented to realize one or more of the following advantages. A user can easily navigate an application store to identify and download applications for a mobile device. Users can be notified of updates to previously downloaded applications without navigating to an update interface. Users can quickly provide feedback on applications including rating the applications and reporting identified problems. Additionally, users can quickly and easily share information on particular applications of interest with other users. Once an application is selected, the user can access other features and applications of the mobile device while waiting for the application to download."

Steve Lemay and Sean Kelly are the inventors. Other patents appearing today include:

Patent number 20120113145 involves column inversion techniques for improved transmittance. The invention relates generally to control of a display device. The inventors are Zihbing Ge, Yongman Lee, Shih Chang Chang, Cheng Chen, Hopli Bae, Ming Xu, Shawn Robert Gettemy and Wei H. Yao.

Patent number 20120114236 for gamma adjustment for maximizing information in images. Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, are described for transforming an image at least in part by using a gamma transformation that maximizes information in the transformed image. Graham Finlayson and Ruixio Xu are the inventors.

Patent number 20120115512 for beacon-based geofencing. Per the patent, a mobile device can monitor a current location using a multi-tier approach. A baseband subsystem can monitor a coarse location of the mobile device using various course location parameters, such as a mobile country code (MCC), a location area code (LAC), or a cell identifier (cell ID), as the mobile device moves closer to the geographic region. Upon determining that the mobile device is in a cell that intersects the geographic region, the baseband subsystem can transfer the monitoring to the application subsystem. Morgan Grainger, Robert Mayor and Ronald K. Huang are the inventors.

Patent number 20120116684 involves improved techniques and systems for utilizing a portable electronic device to monitor, process, present and manage data captured by a remote sensor during a physical activity session. Michael I. Ingrassia and Eugene Dvortsov are the inventors.

Patent number 20120116684 is for a system and method is disclosed that uses screen reader like functionality to speak information presented on a graphical user interface displayed by a media presentation system, including information that is not navigable by a remote control device. Information can be spoken in an order that follows a relative importance of the information based on a characteristic of the information or the location of the information within the graphical user interface. The inventors are Christopher B. Fleizach, Reginald Dean Hudson and Eric Taylor Seymour.

Patent number 20120117195 involves collaborative database operations. The inventors are Les Thomas, Eric Jacobson, Wesley Powell, Adam Ward and Edward Ford.