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On October 12, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple’s patent application titled ‘Apparatus and method to facilitate universal remote control’ uncovered Apple’s patent for what we assume is the iTV. The patent was originally filed in August 2005 for a method to command a universal remote control for controlling multiple home A/V appliances.

The patent reveals that the new remote will work with a plurality of appliances which includes one or more of a television, a video tape player, a video disk player, a stereo, a home control system, and a computer system with remotely controllable software (for example: a DVD player, a CD player, an MP3 player, or slideshow presentation software). The patent notes that this application is not restricted to only electronic appliances, but could also be used to control programs and functions that run on a computer system.

Overall the patent is not very revolutionary but does give a glimps of what is to come from Apple in January…a set-top box.

Read much more [MacNN]