Apple has been granted several patents by the US Patent & Trademark Office. Following is a summary of each.

Patent number 8010937 is for an user interface for electronic backup (think Time Machine). A method includes receiving, a first user input requesting that a backup interface be displayed, displaying the backup interface, the backup interface including a display area for presenting at least a first visual representation of an earlier version of a current view and a visual representation of the current view, the earlier version including a first element, receiving, while the backup interface is displayed, a second user input requesting that the current view be modified according to the earlier version, at least with regard to the first element, animating the modification of the first element as moving from the visual representation of the earlier version to the visual representation of the current view, and modifying, in response to the second user input, the current view according to the earlier version, at least with regard to the first element. The inventors are David Hart, Mike Matas, Pavel Cisler and Kevin Tiene.

Patent number 8010937 involves a method and apparatus for application building using build styles. The method receives target settings including definitions for several build settings for directing build applications to build the several software products. The method receives build styles to build each particular software product. Each build style includes definitions for build settings for directing the build applications to build the particular software product. At least a first received build style inherits from a second build style. The method searches the build styles to identify a definition for a particular build setting by automatically retrieving the second build style to search for a definition for the particular build setting based on an inheritance relationship between the first and second build styles.

The method generates final build settings for the particular software product by applying the definition of the particular build setting to the target settings without changing the target settings. The inventors are Anders Bertelrud, John Graziano, Mike Ferris and Christian Molick.

Patent number 8010370 involves bitrate control for perpetual coding. Techniques for generating a target digital media item based on a source digital media item are described. A digital media item may be a song, a video clip, an album, or any length of audio or video. When adjusting the bit count for a portion of the target digital media item, instead of using the same set of parameter values used in a perceptual model for each portion of the source media item, the set of parameter values may be modified to encode the portion of the source digital media item.

In this way, how audio or video is perceived is taken into account when adjusting a proposed bit count for a given portion of the target digital media item. Thus, while maintaining the same statistical bitrate as before increased digital media quality is achieved. Frank M. Baumgarte is the inventor.

Patents number 8009736 and 8009737 involve a method and apparatus for performing motion estimation in a digital video system. Specifically, the present invention discloses a system that quickly calculates estimated motion vectors in a very efficient manner. In one embodiment, a first multiplicand is determined by multiplying a first display time difference between a first video picture and a second video picture by a power of two scale value. This step scales up a numerator for a ratio.

"Next, the system determines a scaled ratio by dividing that scaled numerator by a second first display time difference between said second video picture and a third video picture. The scaled ratio is then stored calculating motion vector estimations. By storing the scaled ratio, all the estimated motion vectors can be calculated quickly with good precision since the scaled ratio saves significant bits and reducing the scale is preformed by simple shifts. The inventors are Barin Geoffry Haskell, David William Singer, Adriana Dumitras and Atul Puri.

Patent number 8009176 involves a system and method for processing graphic operations on a plurality of data structures of an image with a graphics processing unit and memory. The disclosed techniques of the system and method create an accumulation buffer of the data structures for accumulating changes to the data structures. A separate buffer is then created from at least a portion of the data structures of the accumulation buffer.

The disclosed techniques read the data structures from the separate buffer with the graphics processing unit. The graphics processing unit operates on the data structures read from the separate buffer with the operation. Then, the disclosed techniques write the results of the operation onto the portion of the accumulation buffer corresponding to the separate buffer. Mark Zimmer is the inventor.

Design patent D644218 is for the original white iPhone. The inventors are Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive, Jody Akana, Bartley Andre, Jeremy Bataillou, Daniel Coster, Daniele De Iuliis, Evans Hankey, Richard Howarth, Duncan Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Peter Russell-Clarke, Christopher Stringer, Eugene Whang and Rico Zorkendorfer.

Design patent D644,238 is for a virtual keyboard (for iOS devices, obviously). Bas Ording is the inventor.

Design patent D644,239 involves the iPhone interface. The inventors are Freddy Anzures, Marcel van OS, Stephen Lemay, Imran Chaudhri and Mike Matas.

Design patent D644,208 is for a dock insert. The inventors are Jody Akana, Bartley K. Andre, Jeremy Bataillou, Daniel J. Coster, Daniele De Iuliis, Evans Hankey, Richard P. Howarth, Jonathan P. Ive, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Peter Russell-clarke, Christopher J. Stringer. Eugene Antony Whang, and Rico Zorkendorfer.

-- Dennis Sellers