Quicktime Shuffle patents

Apple today was granted four patents by the US Patent and Trademark Office, pertaining to the dock for the new iPod shuffle, QuickTime, measuring bandwidth, and media serving. Simply filed as "Stand", Apple wrote that "the stand, which can be utilized as a dock, is used to support an electronic device, such as a media player, media storage device, cellular phone, PDA and/or the like." The stand was later revealed to be the syncing mechanism for the now USB-less Shuffle.

The QuickTime patent covers methods and apparatus for processing multimedia information over a network or other communication medium. The patent states that it accounts for QuickTime's ability to manage data with a time-related sequencer.

The third patent illustrates a network setup where computers are transmitting data between themselves, and how to measure time intervals between transmissions, with the goal of optimizing network activity, such as iChat media streaming.

Apple's final patent relates to method and apparatus for clients to obtain multimedia information over a networked media server. It illustrates streaming media from a server when the source application is not known, and how the computer would deal with the media.

by MacNN Staff