New Apple Patents

MacNN reports on the latest Apple patents, published today by the US Patent & Trademark Office. The new patents include a centralized printing queue, a variable-sized icon GUI, a thermal-contact arrangement between chips and heat sinks, and an audio battery status patent. This last may provide audible status information for the upcoming iPhone. If reading about patents is your thing head on over and check these out. MacNN provides links to the actual patent filings.

It always surprises me that certain things that seem fairly brainless and obvious like "monitor a device condition, obtain an audio snippet based on the device condition, output the audio snippet" are patentable, but I am not a lawyer.