This Apple patent lists Steve Jobs as an inventor and is directed towards text entry interface for a portable communication device. Mr. Jobs was awarded U.S. Patent 7574672 entitled “Text entry interface for a portable communication device” on August 11, 2009. The utility patent has been cited 50 times by other U.S. patents in the field of computer technology and in other fields.

A method includes displaying a first tray and a second tray in a display of the portable communications device. The first tray is configured to display one of more characters that were selected by a user using a click wheel. The second tray includes a first plurality of icons that correspond to a set of characters and one or more recommended words. The first tray includes a first region in a graphical user interface and the second tray includes a second region in the graphical user interface. Scrolling through the first plurality of icons and the one or more recommended words occurs in accordance with one or more navigation commands received from a click wheel. Link: U.S. Patent 7574672

Apple filed this utility patent on July 24, 2006 giving it a processing time of 1114 days (compared to an average processing time of 1842 in the field). They have a total number of 15027 patents. The first named inventor is Steve P. Jobs of Palo Alto, CA. The patent was allowed by assistant examiner Grant D Johnson and primary examiner Stephen S Hong.

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