Apple is having a very good week. After their victory over HTC on allegations identifying some HTC Android smartphones to have infringed Apple’s patents, Apple went on to win a patent for starting, and switching applications during phone calls.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) gave Apple a cozy Christmas gift by awarding the patent. It covers a well-ordered trick in iOS that lets you to speed up the process of retrieving apps and returning to the phone app during a call. The patent is entitled “portable electronic device with graphical user interface supporting application switching.”  The technology may drastically affect how Android smartphone manufactures design their devices and user interfaces and the future, and even avoid serious legal retaliation from Apple’s vehement staff of attorneys.

Apple’s latest patent win can be seen as a very valuable one, considering most smartphones, including Android- and Windows-based, allow users to switch over applications while on a phone call. On iPhones, this can be done using a bar at the top of the home screen, which the user can tap to return to a call while in an app.  Android has similar settings that allow calls to be maintained while the home screen or apps are being accessed.

The remaining question is, how much will this affect rivals’ smartphone design?  Apple’s in the business of patents, and is using its brimming portfolio to relegate the rest of the industry in terms of smartphone design and function.  Google has different thoughts on patents and how they should be utilized, but must still survive in mobile’s heated competition.  In HTC’s case from earlier this week, the manufacturer promptly revised its device function that was found to infringe on Apple’s patent, indicating that Apple is really leveraging its patents to flex some muscles.

Recent Apple Patent Wins

Apple has sued HTC, Motorola and Samsung over copyright infringement in many countries. Some of these patent battles are still in court. Here is some recap of Apple patents win in recent years.

Back in October, Apple won some of their patents over HTC including power-management methods and phone-number directories used in HTC mobile devices.

Nortel Network, after its bankruptcy filing, sold its wide portfolio of patents to a handful of mobile companies including Apple. RIM and Apple came out of top after the official approval of their bid on Nortel’s patent book.

Apple won a small victory earlier this month in its global patent battle with rival Samsung, after Australia’s highest court temporarily extended a ban on sales of Samsung’s Galaxy tablet computers in the country. Apple struck first when it sued Samsung in the United States in April, alleging the product design, user interface and packaging of the Galaxy is similar to iPod and iPad design. The two companies filed lawsuits in 10 countries including Germany and the Netherlands, some of which have issued rulings in Apple’s favor.

Last year Apple was awarded a U.S. patent for a display system that would allow multiple viewers to see a high-quality 3D image projected on a screen without the need for special glasses. Apart from 3D viewing, 3D images are also used in medical diagnostics, flight simulation, air traffic control, battlefield simulation, weather diagnostics, advertising and education.

In the first half of the 2009, Apple claimed that it had a patent covering W3C’s (World Wide Web Consortium) widget specification. Apple announced that it has patents that may stand in the way of standardization of software interfaces for touch technology in the browser. W3C is a governing body that looks after the development of web standards. Members of W3C include representatives from Apple, Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and Opera. Later, Opera developers claims that Apple has a pattern of using patents to slow down the W3C’s open standards process, shedding some light on the business side of building and owning a patent portfolio.

The US Patent and Trademark Office issued United States Patent 7,868,582, “Portable devices are having multiple power interfaces,” to Apple. The patent claims a solar power package that can be used to charge the portable electronic device, its battery, and accessories. It also claims that part of the solar cell should be removable. The power provided to the device from the solar cell should be adjustable. Apple’s patent refers to the solar power package as a plug-and-play method of powering the device, battery, or accessory.

The software giant has also been awarded the patent for the touchscreen technology used with its iPod and iPhone products, which it applied for in 2007.