The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 12 granted patents for Apple Inc. today. The notables within this group include one relating to Apple’s Final Cut Studio Soundtrack Pro 2 Surround Mixing wheel which covers surround sound mixing, another relating to Apple’s Finder, one that is interconnected with the iPhone’s GPS and finally one relating to iPhone theft detection.

Final Cut Studio: Surround Mixing

Apple’s patent generally relates to audio signal mixing techniques and, more specifically, to a technique for mixing multiple input channel signals, based on locations of indicators in a GUI, to generate multiple output channel signals. Specifically, the patent covers “Surround Mixing” which could be found in Final Cut Studio.

Apple’s patent states that “At some time after the multiple channel signals have been recorded, one might want to mix the multiple channel signals into an even greater number of output channel signals. For example, one might wish to take two input channel signals and mix them into four output channel signals to produce more of a “surround sound” effect.” The surround mixing tool can be found in Final Cut Studio as shown above – and in patent FIG. 1 below.

Apple credits William George Stewart (Cupertino, CA) and Michael Stephen Hopkins (Mountain View, CA) as the inventors of granted patent 7,549,123 for “Mixing input channel signals to generate output channel signals,” originally filed in June 2005.

Apple Finder Feature

Apple’s patent generally relates to computer systems with graphical user interfaces, such as window based systems; and more particularly to techniques for finding, moving, and copying objects in such systems. Specifically, the patent relates to Apple’s Finder’s spring loaded folders.

A new behavior of the graphical user interface has been provided which allows a user to open and close enclosures, such as folders in the Macintosh Finder environment, while dragging some other object. When the user pauses, gestures, or rolls over a hot spot on the object during the drag, a temporary window corresponding to that object is opened on top of the cursor. This allows the user to browse inside the enclosure and possibly open a hierarchy of enclosures contained within the newly opened window during the drag operation. The user thus has access to the entire storage system hierarchy during a drag operation. By using the spring loaded enclosure mechanism, the user is left free to browse while dragging, rather than being forced to set up source and destination windows before a drag begins. This greatly improves the basic copy and move functions provided by the graphical user interfaces based on windows and icons.

In FIGS. 14A-B, enclosure icon 1400 and a dragged icon 1401 are shown. The enclosure icon 1400 has a hot region, or temporary window open region, 1402 and a main box 1404. If the cursor is moved into the hot region 1402, as illustrated in FIG. 14B, then the sprung open enclosure will be open. If the cursor does not hit the hot region 1402, then no action occurs. If the mouse button is released over the main box 1404, then the dragged object goes inside the enclosure.

Apple credits Thomas J. Conrad (San Jose, CA) and Yin Yin Wong (Menlo Park, CA) as the inventors of patent 7,549,126 for “Computer system with graphical user interface including spring-loaded enclosures,” originally filed in July 2005.

Method of Controlling Movement of a Cursor on a Screen and a Computer Readable Medium Containing such a Method as a Program Code

Apple’s patent generally relates to a method of controlling movement of a cursor on a screen and a computer readable medium containing such a method as a program code. In particular, but not limited thereto, the present invention relates to a method implemented by a computer program for controlling movement of a cursor on a screen which is being used to display graphical data.

Other variations of the computer system can be envisaged. For example, the technology could be used in a specific application such as a GPS system in a car which may not include a keyboard or mouse but rather input buttons and menus on the screen. This patent could have played a part in Apple’s new Maps + Compass application demonstrated advanced GPS during last week’s WWDC.

Apple credits Gerhard Lengeling (Hamburg, DE) and Chris Adam (Norderstedt, DE) as the inventors of granted patent 7,549,131, originally filed in December 2002.

Other Granted Patents Issued Today:

Acceleration-based Theft Detection System for Portable Electronic Devices Apple’s patent generally relates to portable electronic devices. More specifically, this invention relates to theft detection systems for portable electronic devices – like the iPhone. Reference number: 7,548,161. Another security feature was introduced at WWDC 2009 which covers “Locate your iPhone on a map.”

Adaptive context sensitive analysis: Apple’s patent generally relates to the conversion of phonetic characters to written text and more particularly to converting words that are pronounced the same but written differently. Specifically, the patent relates to the Japanese written language of Kanji. Reference number: 7,548,863

Functional DMA performing operation on DMA data and writing result of operation: Apple’s patent generally relates to the field of integrated circuits and, more particularly, to direct memory access (DMA) in systems comprising one or more integrated circuits. Reference number: 7,548,997

Object selection using hit test tracks: Apple’s patent generally relates to methods for selecting objects from a moving image sequence of digitized or synthesized images, and more particularly, to a technique for storing auxiliary data in an item buffer, along with a video track, so as to precisely identify objects which can be selected from within each frame of the video track. Reference number: 7,549,122

Method and apparatus for image blending Apple’s patent generally relates to data processing systems using vector processing and Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) architecture, more particularly to image blending. Reference number: 7,548,248

Generation and use of masks in MPEG video encoding to indicate non-zero entries in transformed macroblocks Apple’s patent generally relates to video encoding. More specifically, the invention relates to use of a non-traditional Zig-Zag Transform for Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) video encoding. Reference number: 7,548,583

Using order value for computing motion vector Apple’s patent generally relates to the field of multimedia compression systems. In particular the present invention discloses methods and systems for specifying variable accuracy inter-picture timing. Reference number: 7,548,584

Producing smooth motion compensated frames by combining multiple interpolation results Apple’s patent generally relates to video frame interpolation, and more specifically to combining results of multiple motion compensated interpolations in order to produce smooth motion in interpolated frames. Reference number: 7,548,664

And lastly, Apple was granted a patent for “Simulation of string vibration” (7,548,837).

NOTICE: MacNN presents only a brief summary of patents with associated graphic(s) for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application and/or Issued Patent is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent application and/or Issued Patent should be read in its entirety for further details. For additional information on any granted patent noted above, simply feed the individual patent number(s) into this search engine.

Jack Purcher, MacNN Senior Patent Editor