Patents Assigned to Apple Computer
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Patent number: 5739825Abstract: In a computer system, a method and an apparatus for generating hatch fills within a contour of a vector graphic. The method of the present invention includes the steps of reading vector graphic data defining a contour of a vector graphic, creating a series of intersection lines overlaying the vector graphic, defining intersection points that indicate where the intersection lines intersect the contour of the vector graphic, and wherein the intersection points create an array having a row corresponding to each intersection line, connecting with connection lines the intersection points of each row, and verifying that each of the connection lines are contained within the contour of the vector graphic, and removing portions of any connection lines not contained within the contour of the vector graphic.Type: GrantFiled: October 2, 1995Date of Patent: April 14, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventor: John B. Turner
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Patent number: 5740436Abstract: A system architecture is provided for configuring audio and video components connected to a computer through a textual display and a graphic display, so that users may more easily access and use all of the component capabilities of the system. Groups of related components are integrated into a comprehensive, streamlined, consistent, and coherent user interface so that the user interaction is as straightforward and consistent as possible. A component-based configuration for the connected components permits new components to be easily added.Type: GrantFiled: June 6, 1995Date of Patent: April 14, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventors: Lisa Louise Davis, Gregory K. Mullins
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Patent number: 5740455Abstract: A computer program product, which includes a computer usable medium having computer readable code embodied therein for processing data in a compound document. The compound document includes a plurality of embedded object editors for respectively rendering data having different interest types in different compound document content areas. The compound document further includes a plurality of editing controllers embedded in the compound document. The inventive computer program product includes computer readable program code configured to cause a computer to detect whether a selection is made in one of the data. Furthermore, there is included computer readable program code configured to cause the computer to effect the filling out of an auditor data structure with attributes of the selection by the object editor that is associated with the data in which the selection is made.Type: GrantFiled: May 16, 1995Date of Patent: April 14, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventors: John Franklin Pavley, John Benton Turner, II, Gary Stephen Hanson
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Patent number: 5736989Abstract: Color conversion systems and methods using an interpolation table that minimizes interpolation color value generation times and reduces memory storage of interpolation tables. A first color conversion method and system reduces interpolation table generation times by generating interpolation color values on an "as needed" basis while performing color conversions. A second color conversion method minimizes interpolation table memory storage by dividing the interpolation table into segments, allocating primary memory storage to store only a given number of segments and establishing a segment status bit array to indicate whether a given segment is currently stored in primary memory. A third system and method combines both the first and second methods so that both interpolation table generation times and table memory storage is reduced.Type: GrantFiled: January 11, 1996Date of Patent: April 7, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventor: Vladimir Lhotak
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Patent number: 5737572Abstract: A system and method for controlling DRAM is described. According to exemplary embodiments of the present invention, a memory subsystem can be populated by end users with any of a variety of DRAM chips. A memory controller will size each memory bank and determine whether paired memory banks are to be configured as interleaved or non-interleaved based upon the detected DRAM population. Bank selection logic is designed to account for both size and status (interleaved or non-interleaved) when determining which memory bank contains a memory location of interest. Row and column addressing is selected to minimize decoding of an incoming system address and reduce DRAM access time.Type: GrantFiled: June 6, 1995Date of Patent: April 7, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventor: Ann B. Nunziata
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Patent number: 5737487Abstract: A system and method for performing speaker adaptation in a speech recognition system which includes a set of reference models corresponding to speech data from a plurality of speakers. The speech data is represented by a plurality of acoustic models and corresponding sub-events, and each sub-event includes one or more observations of speech data. A degree of lateral tying is computed between each pair of sub-events, wherein the degree of tying indicates the degree to which a first observation in a first sub-event contributes to the remaining sub-events. When adaptation data from a new speaker becomes available, a new observation from adaptation data is assigned to one of the sub-events. Each of the sub-events is then populated with the observations contained in the assigned sub-event based on the degree of lateral tying that was computed between each pair of sub-events.Type: GrantFiled: February 13, 1996Date of Patent: April 7, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventors: Jerome R. Bellegarda, John W. Butzberger, Yen-Lu Chow
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Patent number: 5736930Abstract: An apparatus for warning a user that a radiation source is likely to fail in the near future comprises a radiation source, having a radiance; a detector, responsive to the radiance; a memory, having a radiance measurement unit for collecting radiance data and a failure prediction unit for determining that the radiation source end of life is near; and a processing unit, coupled to the detector and the memory. A method for warning a user that a radiation source is likely to fail in the near future comprises the steps of collecting radiance data from the radiation source; determining if the radiation source's end of life is near; and warning a user if the radiation source's end of life is near.Type: GrantFiled: July 21, 1995Date of Patent: April 7, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventor: Richard D. Cappels
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Patent number: 5737554Abstract: A system and method of using object sensitivity values and a cursor to select a graphical object from a plurality of graphical objects and sub-objects appearing on a display device. The plurality of graphical objects includes at least one container. A sensitivity value from the set of Normal, Opaque, Transparent, Invisible, Customized, and Automatic is designated for each of the objects. At authoring time, a sensitivity value from this set can be easily assigned to each of the objects, thus affecting the way hit testing proceeds over the objects. More particularly, an object is selected from the plurality of objects based on the position of the cursor, object position, object containment, and the sensitivity value of at least one of the objects.Type: GrantFiled: October 31, 1995Date of Patent: April 7, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventors: Hernan Epelman-Wang, Ruben Kleiman, David Patrick Vronay
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Patent number: 5737490Abstract: A method and apparatus for constructing a hidden Markov model comprised of multiple fenones characterized by their duration and a set of acoustic properties. The present invention provides a sequence of fenones to model a speech event. The sequence may undergo modifications to improve the overall performance of the model.Type: GrantFiled: October 22, 1996Date of Patent: April 7, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventors: Stephen Christopher Austin, Peter Vincent de Souza
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Patent number: 5736796Abstract: The present invention is a printed circuit board having conductive layers split into electrically isolated voltage supply plane regions each plane region being connectable to an external supply voltage. The voltage supply plane regions are split to reduce the total number of PCB conductive layers. Voltage supply plane regions are configured to match the device voltage requirements and their placement on the PCB. In the case in which a circuit includes a device having two voltage supply requirements, a first set of the device's power supply pins are fixedly coupled to a first voltage supply plane region and a second set of the device's power supply pins are fixedly coupled to a second voltage supply plane region. In this instance, each of the first and second voltage supply plane regions are fixedly connectable to external voltage supplies or to a voltage regulator according to the voltage supply requirements of the device.Type: GrantFiled: May 1, 1995Date of Patent: April 7, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventors: Noah M. Price, Duane M. P. Takahashi, David C. Buuck
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Patent number: 5734892Abstract: Storage and access of compressed data via separately compressed and stored variable size logical blocks. Portions of a data file are compressed until they reach a logical block size which matches a given sector size or block of storage space. The compressed logical block (portion of compressed data) is stored into a sector allocated to it and a table is built correlating the range of original data to the sector storing the compressed data. When it is desired to read a given portion of data within a stored compressed data file, it is first determined where within the original data file the desired portion resided. Then, the correlation table created as part of the compression and storage sequence is used to determine which sector contains the desired data.Type: GrantFiled: September 18, 1995Date of Patent: March 31, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventor: Ke-Chiang Chu
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Patent number: 5734791Abstract: The branching decision for each node in a vector quantization (VQ) binary tree is made by a simple comparison of a pre-selected element of the candidate vector with a stored threshold resulting in a binary decision for reaching the next lower level. Each node has a preassigned element and threshold value. Conventional centroid distance training techniques (such as LBG and k-means) are used to establish code-book indices corresponding to a set of VQ centroids. The set of training vectors are used a second time to select a vector element and threshold value at each node that approximately splits the data evenly. After processing the training vectors through the binary tree using threshold decisions, a histogram is generated for each code-book index that represents the number of times a training vector belonging to a given index set appeared at each index. The final quantization is accomplished by processing and then selecting the nearest centroid belonging to that histogram.Type: GrantFiled: December 31, 1992Date of Patent: March 31, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventors: Alejandro Acero, Kai-Fu Lee, Yen-Lu Chow
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Patent number: 5734903Abstract: A system for object oriented message filtering for selectively transferring a message between a client task and one or more server tasks for preprocessing, processing, and postprocessing comprises an object database having a filter object memory, an object management unit, a message transaction unit, and a locking unit. The object management unit creates a port object and one or more associated target message objects. The object management unit selectively creates one or more filter objects associated with a target message object, and selectively associates a preprocessor message object, a postprocessor message object, or both a preprocessor message object and a postprocessor message object with each filter object. The message transaction unit selectively routes a message sent by a client task and directed to a target message object to one or more associated preprocessor message objects prior to delivering the message to the target message object.Type: GrantFiled: May 13, 1994Date of Patent: March 31, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventors: Thomas E. Saulpaugh, Steven J. Szymanski
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Patent number: 5734901Abstract: A computer implemented method and apparatus for providing the functions of electronic mail in a computer system which is integrated within a display or a window under control of a first application program which does not support electronic mail functionality. A set if mail routines displays a mailer on a first portion of the application program's display with application program data displayed in a second portion of the application program's display. The mail routines allow the user to modify the data in the application program via functionality of the application program and modify the mailer via the functionality of the mail routines. The mail routines further allow the user to perform electronic mail functions provided by the mail routines, wherein the electronic mail functions include using the application program data as content of mail messages processed by the mail routines.Type: GrantFiled: September 26, 1995Date of Patent: March 31, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventors: Gursharan S. Sidhu, Stephen Fisher, Patrick A. Holleran, Michael Andrew Cleron
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Patent number: 5732275Abstract: A software program running on a computer is automatically managed, monitored and updated with a newer version in a completely automated fashion, without interruption of its primary function, and in a manner that is completely transparent to the user of the computer. This is achieved by means of a control module that performs the functions of locating and identifying other versions of its associated program, determining whether the other versions are older or newer than currently stored versions, and downloading a newer version. Multiple versions of the program can remain accessible on the computer, and the control module manages the launching of a particular version that may be required. Statistical data relating to the launching and operation of the program is collected, and uploaded to a central location on a regular basis.Type: GrantFiled: January 11, 1996Date of Patent: March 24, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventors: Steven Kullick, Diane Titus
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Patent number: 5731999Abstract: A method of designing improved CMOS input circuits by understanding and selecting appropriate drive strength for a CMOS output from a previous stage. The method involves modeling the net using HSPICE and including a transit time term to accurately model charge storage, then size drivers as needed to keep the V.sub.ss clamps out of forward conduction. Excessive ringing can cause data errors in the input stage if unterminated, falling edge transitions in such a net can turn on a receiver's V.sub.ss clamp diode (stored charge in the V.sub.ss clamp diode combined with the line's inductance and the receiver's capacitance form an energized resonant circuit which can release energy at a time to cause a data glitch). Currently, XNS simulation miscalculates the ring amplitude by a factor of three. Driver scaling and termination can eliminate the problem by keeping the receiver's V.sub.ss clamp out of forward conduction. Driver sizing can control the problem.Type: GrantFiled: February 3, 1995Date of Patent: March 24, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventor: Duane M. P. Takahashi
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Patent number: 5732272Abstract: A subroutine execution time tracer that is able to trace execution times of software subroutines regardless of whether the subroutines are invoked or exited using standard or non-standard subroutine calling conventions is described. A head patch is placed at the beginning of a software subroutine, and a tail patch is placed at the end of the software routine. The invention uses the head patch to examine the return address on the system stack before replacing the return address with the address of a tail patch. If the return address on the system stack already corresponds to a tail patch, then a counter associated with the tail patch is incremented. The counter serves to notify the tail patch that when invoked it must log an additional exit event. This allows subroutines which "jump" to other subroutines (i.e., non-standard subroutine calls) to be properly traced. The invention also configures the tail patch as an internal code stack.Type: GrantFiled: July 31, 1995Date of Patent: March 24, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventor: James R. Gochee
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Patent number: 5731843Abstract: An apparatus and method are provided for automatically adjusting a pixel sampling clock frequency and phase of a video display to match the frequency and phase of a pixel clock used to generate an incoming video signal being received by the video display. Voltage transitions are detected between pixel intensities in a video signal. The voltage transitions are compared with pixel sampling clock pulse signals of the video display in order to correctly match the frequency and phase of the video signal, and thus produce a more stable and noise-free image on the video display.Type: GrantFiled: September 30, 1994Date of Patent: March 24, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventor: Richard D. Cappels, Sr.
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Patent number: 5730512Abstract: A multipiece housing for a monitor having a first section with a plurality of projections, and a second section having a plurality of receptacles for receiving the plurality of projections during the assembly of the housing. Each receptacle includes an air duct enabling air to flow bidirectionally between outside the housing and inside the housing after being assembled. Separate sections of the multipiece housing are completely assembled by hand and without using any special tools. Each receptacle includes a pair of parallel guide rails and a slanted surface which guide each receptacle into a slot in the corresponding projection. Joints formed between the separate sections, while enabling air to pass, prohibit accidental access to the internal components of the monitor. Snap features are included on one of the sections to assist in securing together the first and second sections during assembly.Type: GrantFiled: April 7, 1995Date of Patent: March 24, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventor: Douglas L. Heirich
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Patent number: D392963Type: GrantFiled: May 5, 1995Date of Patent: March 31, 1998Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc.Inventor: Patricia J. Coleman