Apple Wins a Patent for the AirPods Max s 3D Audio using a Virtual Acoustic System
On the last granted patent day of 2020, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted Apple a patent for a
Virtual Acoustic System for headphones that produce 3D audio.
Apple notes that the term headphones is intended
to encompass on-ear headphones, over-the-ear headphones (AirPods Max) and AirPods that deliver a distinct sound program to each ear of the listener with no significant cross-over of each ear s sound program to the other ear of the listener.
Apple notes that the human auditory system modifies incoming sounds by filtering them depending on the location of the sound relative to the listener. The modified sound involves a set of spatial cues used by the brain to detect the position of a sound. Human hearing is binaural, using two ears to perceive two sound-pressure signals created by a sound.