This Apple patent lists Steve Jobs as an inventor and is directed towards media management for groups of media items. Mr. Jobs was awarded U.S. Patent 7958441 entitled “Media management for groups of media items” on June 7, 2011. The utility patent has been cited 59 times by other U.S. patents in the field of audio-visual technology and in other fields.

Improved techniques to utilize and manage a group of media items (or media assets) on a computing device are disclosed. The group of media items can be utilized and managed at a host computer for the host computer as well as a media device (e.g., media player) that can couple to the host computer. One popular example of a group of media items is know as a playlist, which can pertain to a group of audio tracks. One aspect pertains to a graphical user interface that enables a user to trade-off storage capacity of a media device between media asset storage and data storage. Another aspect pertains to a graphical user interface that assists a user with selecting media items to fill a group of media items. Still another aspect pertains to providing a persistent media device playlist at a host computer. Yet still another aspect pertains to imposing capacity limits to a playlist, such as a media device playlist. Link: U.S. Patent 7958441

Apple filed this utility patent on April 1, 2005 giving it a processing time of 2258 days (compared to an average processing time of 1905 in the field). They have a total number of 15027 patents. The first named inventor is Steve P. Jobs of Palo Alto, CA. The patent was allowed by primary examiner Kyle R Stork and examiner .

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