Apple gets 12 new patents

Apple has been granted 12 new patents, including a surround mixing patent for Final Cut Studio which covers the use of a graphical user interface to engineer sound movement across multiple channels. Two other featured patents are for Apple's spring-loaded folders and a method of controlling movement of a cursor on a screen and a computer-readable medium containing such a method as a program code. The later primarily relates to GPS data on an iPhone.

Other patents granted relate to acceleration-based theft detection systems for portable electronic devices, adaptive context-sensitive analysis, functional DMA performing operations on DMA data and writing result of operation, object selection using hit test tracks and methods and equipment for image blending.

Several more patents were issued for generation and use of masks in MPEG video encoding to indicate non-zero entries in transformed macroblocks; using order values for computing motion vectors; producing smooth motion-compensated frames by combining multiple interpolation results; and simulation of string vibration.

by MacNN Staff