By now, most of you are aware of the growing feud between Apple and Samsung. The Cupertino company believes that Samsung is infringing on their intellectual property by copying design traits of their popular iDevices.
The latest chapter in this tale of litigation has found Apple and Samsung battling it out in a Sydney courtroom. The fighting has halted shipments of Australia-bound Galaxy Tabs for the time being, and it may have also yielded details about Apple’s upcoming smartphone…
Channel News, an Australian tech site, reported last night about an interesting patent application filed by Apple at the end of July as part of their court battle. The site came across the filing in Australia’s IP databases, which describes a mysterious Apple device. They’re suggesting it’s the iPhone 5:
“The handheld electronic device includes at least a single seamless housing having a front opening and a cover disposed within the front opening and attached to the seamless housing without a bezel. The invention relates to a seamless housing formed of a single sheet of metal.”
We’ve actually heard rumors in the past few months suggesting that the iPhone 5 would have a metal backing. There was also mention in the text that the gadget was “lighter and thinner than previous Apple devices,” which we’ve also been hearing tossed around.
While Apple Inc. is indeed listed as the applicant on the patent, the inventions mentioned within it are hard to decipher. There are mentions of cellular technology in the documents, but the accompanying graphics seem to depict an iPod touch-like device with a headset jack on the bottom.
We just got ahold of the patent application last night, so give us the weekend to look it over in-depth. If you want to check out the filing for yourself, you can read through the application in its entirety here. Let us know if you find anything interesting.
Thoughts?