On December 18, 2007, the US Patent & Trademark Office published two of Apple’s newly granted patents. The first granted patent covers Apple’s activity sensor technology which plays a crucial role in the Nike + iPod product line. The second granted patent covers a very complex technology relating to decoding coded data streams.

Patent: Activity sensor

Apple has been granted a design win for their activity sensor which directly relates to the Nike + iPod Initiative.

Apple’s patent FIG. 2 illustrates a top view of the activity sensor in accordance with the present design and FIG. 8 is a reference view of the activity sensor shown disposed within a running shoe.

Apple lists Daniel J. Coster (San Francisco, CA) and Christopher J. Stringer (Portola Valley, CA) as the inventors of this design patent which was originally filed in May 2006.

Patent: Decoding coded data streams

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for decoding coded data streams, including biphase coded data streams such as, similar to or compatible with the IEC 60958 and Japanese EIAJ CP-340 1987-9 standards. AES-EBU (Audio Engineering Society–European Broadcasting Union) and SPDIF (Sony Philips Digital Interconnect Format) are both implementations of the IEC 60958 standard.

According to certain embodiments of the present invention, there is provided a method of decoding a coded data stream of a plurality of cells, the uncoded data stream comprising a plurality of segments each formed of a preamble of fixed length and a series of data bits, wherein: the coded data stream includes at least two cells and one transition for each data bit and a portion without a transition at the beginning of each preamble, the said portion having the maximum period in the coded data stream without a transition and being longer than a bit period, the method characterized by: detecting transitions in the coded data stream; determining the maximum period in the data stream without a transition; determining a first threshold corresponding to a period of time less than the maximum period and greater than the data bit period; determining whether a considered transition corresponds to a data bit or a preamble based on the time between the considered transition and a preceding transition compared with said first threshold; and if the considered transition corresponds to a data bit, determining the data bit based on the considered transition and the preceding considered transition.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for decoding a coded data stream of a plurality of cells, the uncoded data stream comprising a plurality of segments each formed of a preamble of fixed length and a series of data bits, wherein: the coded data stream includes at least two cells and one transition for each data bit and a portion without a transition at the beginning of each preamble, the said portion having the maximum period in the coded data stream without a transition and being longer than a bit period, the method characterized by: a detector for detecting transitions in the coded data stream; a timer for determining the time between adjacent transitions; logic for determining the maximum period in the data stream without a transition and for determining a first threshold corresponding to a period of time less than the maximum period and greater than the data bit period; and a filter for determining whether a considered transition corresponds to a data bit or a preamble based on the time between the considered transition and a preceding transition compared with said first threshold and, if the considered transition corresponds to a data bit, determining the data bit based on the considered transition and the preceding considered transition.

According to yet another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of decoding a biphase coded data stream comprising a plurality of words formed of a plurality of cells of equal period, the cells in each word forming a preamble and a series of data bits wherein: the preamble comprises a predetermined plurality of cells and each data bit comprises two cells; there is a transition between cells of adjacent data bits; there is a transition between a data bit cell and an adjacent preamble cell; and a predetermined maximum period in the data stream without a transition is formed at the beginning of the preamble, the maximum period being longer than the cell period, the method characterized by: detecting transitions in the data stream; determining a threshold corresponding to the maximum period in the data stream without a transition; determining whether a transition corresponds to a data bit cell or the preamble based on the time between the transition and a preceding transition compared to the threshold; and if the transition corresponds to a data bit cell, determining the data bit represented by the data bit cell based on the transition and the transition of a cell of an adjacent data bit.

According to a still further aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for decoding a biphase coded data stream comprising a plurality of words formed of a plurality of cells of equal period, the cells in each word forming a preamble and a series of data bits, wherein: the preamble comprises a predetermined plurality of cells and each data bit comprises two cells; there is a transition between cells of adjacent data bits; there is a transition between a data bit cell and an adjacent preamble cell; and a predetermined maximum period in the data stream without a transition is formed at the beginning of the preamble, the maximum period being longer than the cell period, the apparatus comprising: a detector for detecting transitions in the data stream; logic for determining a threshold corresponding to the maximum period in the data stream without a transition; and a filter for determining whether a transition corresponds to a data bit cell or the preamble based on the time between the transition and a preceding transition compared to the threshold and, if the transition corresponds to a data bit cell, for determining the data bit represented by the data bit cell based on the transition and the transition of a cell of an adjacent data bit.

Apple’s patent FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a decoding apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Apple lists Felix Uwe Bertram (Rellingen, DE) as the sole inventor of this patent which was originally filed in October 2003.

NOTICE: MacNN presents only a brief summary of patents with associated graphic(s) for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application and/or grant is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent applications and/or grants should be read in its entirety for further details.

Written and researched by Neo.