Apple Patent For Censoring Texting
Yesterday, the USPTO issued Apple's U.S. Patent No. 7,814,163 directed to a "Text-based communication control for personal communication device." The patent has one independent claim and 14 total claims.
Claim 1 recites:
1. A text-based communication device comprising:
input circuitry that provides a user interface to enable a user to perform at least one of inputting and editing a text message;
transmission circuitry for sending the text message; and
processing circuitry for controlling the sending of the text message based on at least a portion of the text message and at least one message control condition, wherein the at least one message control condition comprises a rated message control condition corresponding to the user's designated language skill rating.
According to the Notice of Allowability, the patent office allowed the claims because the references the patent office relied on in its original rejections did not disclose "a rated message control condition corresponding to the user's designated language skill rating."
According to the extensive "Summary of the Invention" section of the patent,
In some embodiments, at least one of the message control conditions includes applying ratings to the message control conditions, at least one of which can correspond to the user's designated language skill rating. The rated message control conditions can be applied to the entire message or a portion of the message according to the user's designated language skill rating. In further embodiments, the designated language may include a required foreign language, vocabulary, spelling, grammar and/or punctuation based on the user's designated skill level.
