An Apple patent (number 20120083208) for wireless accessory device pairing transfer between multiple hosts has appeared today at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

Per the patent, a wireless communications system includes an accessory device and multiple host devices. A host device pairs wirelessly with an accessory device using a unique link key, detects a primary trigger event and responds by transferring automatically its pairing with the accessory device to a second host device while all devices remain within wireless range of each other.

The pairing transfer involves communicating the link key to the second host device, unpairing the accessory device from the first host device, and establishing a wireless pairing of the accessory device to the second host device. The primary trigger event can involve establishing a ported connection between host devices. A secondary trigger event results in the first host device automatically reclaiming its pairing with the accessory device.

An accessory device can also select and pair with one of multiple host devices in response to a specific user gesture detected by the accessory device. The inventors are Michael J. Giles, Jack I-Chieh Fu, Christopher T. Mullens, Craig P. Dooley and Adrian E. Sun.

Other Apple patents appearing today at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office include:

° Patent number 20120086426 for a single-inductor, multiple-out power supply with a default path. This power supply includes a power source, an inductor, a control circuit, and an input switch that couples the input terminal of the inductor to either the power source or a reference voltage. Eric Smith is the inventor.

° Patent number 20120086812, which involves an n operator friendly camera testing module is described. The camera testing module includes at least a color shift evaluation unit and a color non-uniformity evaluation unit. The color shift evaluation unit providing a color shift metric and the color non-uniformity evaluation unit providing a color non-uniformity metric each used to characterize a digital camera. The inventors are Hongqin Zhang, Shizhe Shen, Michael DiVincent and Chong Yip Chow.

° Patent number 20120083911 for communicating sensor data between electronic devices. Per the patent, sensor data is communicated between two electronic devices under control of the receiving device. The inventors are Sylvain R.Y. Louboutin, Robert J. Walsh and Shyam S. Toprani.

° Patent number 20120087066 for an attachment mechanism An attachment mechanism for attaching a first component and a second component includes at least a body integrally formed with the first component. William F. Leggett is the inventor.

° Patent number 20120081577, which involves image sensor data formats and memory addressing techniques for image signal processing. Certain embodiments of the present disclosure provide a flexible memory input/output controller that is configured to the storing and reading of multiple types of pixels and pixel memory formats. The inventors are Guy Cote, Jeffrey E. Frederiksen, Joseph P. Bratt and Jung Wook Cho.

° Patent number 20120084484 for selectively combining commands for a system having non-volatile memory. The inventors are Daniel J. Post, Nir J. Wakrat and Vadim Khmelnitsky.

° Patent number 20120084627, which involves data recovery using outer codewords stored in volatile memory. The inventors are Daniel J. Post and Kenneth Herman.

° Patent number 20120089712 for systems and methods for providing resource address management. Jeffrey T. Lee is the inventor.

° Patent number 20120086438, which involves real-time calibration system and method for a mobile device having an onboard magnetometer uses an estimator to estimate magnetometer calibration parameters and a magnetic field external to the mobile device (e.g., the earth magnetic field). Xiaoyuan Tu is the inventor.

° Patent number 20120089712 for systems and methods for providing network resource address management. Jeffrey T. Lee is the inventor.