While I write this, it’s less than 4 hours for the much anticipated Apple Event of 2010 where Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller will announce the Apple TabletiPad. While nothing has been unveiled by Apple, clouds of doubt seem to fade away by learning the fact that the US Patent and Trademark Office has approved 13 patents filed by Apple including a patent for Proximity Detector for Tablets.

This could very well be the patent that will rule 2010 as far as Tablets are concerned. The figure clearly shows the proximity detector being used on a Tablet computer. It’s only until 10 AM PDT on Jan 27, 2010 for us to find out the truth.

Some of the important patents acquired by Apple are:

• Proximity Detector for Tablets.
• Automatic Detection of Channel Bandwidth.
• Color Management System.
• Apparatus and method for rotating the display orientation of a captured image.
• A video conferencing system and interface for providing modeless timeline based selection of an audio or video file.