Recently, the United States Patent and Trademark Office released a range of patents that were recently granted to the multinational corporation, Apple Inc. The company is well renowned as being founded by the late Steve Jobs, and Apple’s major business operations today include the designing and selling and personal computers, computer software and consumer electronics. The newest series of granted patents adds to Apple’s already bulging technology patent portfolio, as one of the patents describes an Apple TV function for recording and organizing cable TV episodes.

An interesting aspect about the patents is the fact that Steve Jobs was credited as an inventor, even though he has now recently passed away. The patents therefore serve as one of the final creative legacies that Steve Jobs has left behind. The patent was initially filed in the second half of 2006, almost 6 years ago, and other credited inventors alongside Steve Jobs include Jeffrey Ma, Rachel Goldeen, Rainer Brodersen and Mihnea Pacuraiu.

With Apple’s market dominance with other popular consumer electronic devices such as the iPod, iPhone and the iPad, these new set of patents signal Apple’s budding interest in entering and then leading the HDTV hardware space. It is expected that future Apple products related to television may implement the patented methods for organizing episodic programming. In addition, future Apple TV devices could have the capability of recording broadcast television shows. Apart from these patented innovations in television, USA Today recently also reported that Apple was working on an LCD TV that was at least 42 inches in size.

Apple’s innovations in the television space are significant for making TV devices more interactive and attractive, as more people around the world have instead been watching more videos and episodes from the internet rather than their conventional TV sets.