Apple has been granted a patent (number D699468) by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for the design of the iPad 2.

The inventors are Jody Akana, Bartley K. Andre, Jeremy Bataillou, Daniel J. Costerr, Daniele De Iuliis, Evans Hankey, Julian Hoenigh, Richard P. Howarth, Jonathan P. Ive, Duncan Robert Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Peter Russell-Clarke, Christopher J. Stringer, Eugene Antony Whang and Rico Zorkendorfer.

Also appearing today at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office are:

° Patent number 8296383 for electronic devices with voice command and contextual data processing capabilities;

° Patent number 8296833 for system connections and user interfaces;

° Patent number 8296348 for encoding and decoding data arrays;

° Patent number 8295682 for techniques and interface controls that allow users of signal editing applications to easily select previously-selected segments of the signal;

° Patent number 8294850 for a liquid crystal display (LCD) having a liquid crystal layer.

° Patent number 8294823 for video communication systems and methods;

° Patent number 8294766 for systems and methods are providing for navigating a three-dimensional model using deterministic movement of an electronic device;

° Patent number 8294647 for LCD pixel design varying by color;

° Patent number 8296776 for an efficient method for terminating applications;

° Patent number 8296677 for a content abstraction presentation along a multidimensional path.

° Patent number 8294865 for a common bus design for a TFT-LCD display

° Patent number 8296558 for a method and apparatus for securing communication between a mobile node and a network;

° Patent number 8296332 for methods, program products, and systems for visual manipulation of database schema;

° Patent number 8296282 for ways to facilitate creation of a community without member-specific registration, one or more sibling identifiers with corresponding units to be distributed to other persons are allocated to a subscriber and the one or more sibling identifiers is associated with the subscriber's identifier;

° Patent number 8295778 for a system and methodology a for aperiodic (i.e., non-periodic) feedback of channel-side information, such as channel rank information, to a base station by having the receiver/UE initiate the feedback instead of using a scheduled feedback approach;

° Patent number 8295711 for a frequency-agile infrared receiver;

° Patent number 8295395 for methods and an apparatus that enable one or more wireless networks to minimize inter-cellular interference (ICI) at a receiver;

° Patent number 8295376 for a method of estimating symbols carried by a digital signal that is received by a receiver over a communication channel;

° Patent number 8295343 for a video bit rate control method;

° Patent number 8295302 for methods and apparatus for ensuring compatibility on a high performance serial bus;

° Patent number 8295184 for controlling a wireless connection of a mobile wireless communication device to a wireless communication network;

° Patent number 8295040 for a cooling method for a small form factor desktop computer (the Mac mini);

° Patent number 8294730 for a method for rendering graphical data;

° Patent number 8294675 for a touchpad and pick button assembly;

° Patent number 8294482 for systems and methods for testing a peripheral in accordance with a high-speed serial interface protocol;

° Patent number 8294047 for selective input signal rejection and modification;

° Patent number 8294662 for edge connectors to connect a daughter or optional board to an edge of a main or motherboard.