The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 16 newly granted patents for Apple recently. This begin with two design patents relating to Cover Flow animation and Apple's MacBook Air SuperDrive and then continue with granted patents for a virtual keyboard for media players, video encoding in iChat, iDVD and finally an important multi-touch related patent covering error compensation for multi-touch surfaces.

Yes, Apple now has a patent on the "Cover Flow" technology that started in iTunes and is now a system standard since the arrival of OS Leopard. Labelled Apple patent D613,300, it covers the appearance of the Cover Flow technology, that smooth scrolling through items that lets you find what you’re looking for quickly.