ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,374,069, issued on July 29, was assigned to Apple Inc. (Cupertino, Calif.).

"Devices, methods, and graphical user interfaces for real-time communication" was invented by Jesse Chand (San Francisco), Shih-Sang Chiu (San Francisco), Wesley M. Holder (Union City, Calif.), Stephen O. Lemay (Palo Alto, Calif.), William A. Sorrentino III (Mill Valley, Calif.), Rajat Bhardwaj (Walnut Creek, Calif.), Giancarlo Yerkes (San Francisco), Jason D. Rickwald (Santa Cruz, Calif.), Rupert Burton (San Francisco), Kaely Coon (San Francisco), Connor A. Smith (Sunnyvale, Calif.), Joseph P. Cerra (San Francisco) and Tommy Rochette (Santa Cruz, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Paten...