Three Apple patent applications published on 22 Nov. 07 claim priority to 1998 provisional

Coolest-gadgets writes: Apple has just filed a trio of patents slightly over a month after the iPhone debuted in the US, bringing the world of curved multi-touch surfaces that will be capable of recognizing more than just plain old fingertips. These new patents, when pieced together, will result in a sensor layout as well as those for mobile sensors and compliant conductors, whereby the collective technology used will bring improved touch input notes which accurate enough to create a sensor image of different parts of the hand without being bound to any particular size, shape or resolution.

This is based on a post at appleinsider.

These are of course published patent applications, for example US 20070268275, published on November 22, 2007 based on application 11/830815, filed July 30, 2007. The first claim of the '815 application states:

A touch-sensitive apparatus comprising:
a. a deformable touch layer having a top surface accessible to a user and a bottom surface;
b. a compliant sense object layer mounted below the deformable touch layer and adjacent to the bottom surface;
c. a compliant dielectric layer mounted below the deformable sense object layer; and d. a plurality of sensors spaced apart from each other and mounted below the compliant dielectric layer, each sensor capable of providing an indication of proximity to the sense object layer.

For those interested in the currently enjoined rules on continuing applications, note

This application is a continuation of Ser. No. 11/015,434, entitled "Method and Apparatus for Integrating Manual Input," filed Dec. 17, 2004, which is a continuation of Ser. No. 09/919,266 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,888,536), entitled "Method And Apparatus For Integrating Manual Input" filed Jul. 31, 2001, which is a division of application Ser. No. 09/236,513 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,323,846) filed Jan. 25, 1999, which claims the benefit of provisional application 60/072,509, filed Jan. 26, 1998, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

Given that there are no cip's in the chain, one notes that the '815 application is hardly a "new" disclosure, as wrongly suggested by coolest-gadgets, but rather dates back to technology disclosed in an application filed on January 25, 1999, claiming provisional priority to January 26, 1998, almost ten (10) years ago!!

Published application 20070268273 has a similar history:

This application is a continuation of Ser. No. 11/015,434, entitled "Method and Apparatus for Integrating Manual Input," filed Dec. 17, 2004, which is a continuation of Ser. No. 09/919,266 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,888,536), entitled "Method And Apparatus For Integrating Manual Input" filed Jul. 31, 2001, which is a division of application Ser. No. 09/236,513 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,323,846) filed Jan. 25, 1999, which claims the benefit of provisional application 60/072,509, filed Jan. 26, 1998, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

Published application 20070268274 is also similar:

This application is a continuation of Ser. No. 11/015,434, entitled "Method and Apparatus for Integrating Manual Input," filed Dec. 17, 2004, which is a continuation of Ser. No. 09/919,266 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,888,536), entitled "Method And Apparatus For Integrating Manual Input" filed Jul. 31, 2001, which is a division of application Ser. No. 09/236,513 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,323,846) filed Jan. 25, 1999, which claims the benefit of provisional application 60/072,509, filed Jan. 26, 1998, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

Note that all three applications published on Nov. 22, 2007 all claim priority to the SAME provisional application 60/072,509, filed January 26, 1998, and the same nonprovisional application, 09/236,513.