ATI Technologies recently recorded “AVIVO” brand-name in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. At this point the meaning of the trademark is unclear, but it is highly likely that this is a technology to be introduced along with ATI’s new lineup of products, including visual processing units or multimedia products.

“ATI AVIVO” was registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office in early July by attorney of record Lynn M. Jordan. The exact meaning of the brand-name is uncertain and ATI’s official spokesperson declined to comment on the matter. However, AVIVO may be an abbreviate for Advanced Video-in/Video-Out, something which may be available on ATI’s future products that support certain multimedia functions.

“Computer software for improving the quality of images as they appear on a computer monitor; and computer hardware, namely, transistor blocks for facilitating the software's function,” – is the company’s description of AVIVO.

Typically, companies usually register trademarks 1-2 months ahead of the timeframe they would like to talk about products that carry brand-name publicly.

The highly-anticipated code-named R520 visual processing unit (VPU) that targets high-end market is reported to be launched in at least four versions, including R520 XL, R520 PRO, R520 XT and R520 XT CrossFire Edition. The R520 XL is expected to be launched in early September, 2005, whereas the XT and XT CrossFire parts are projected to follow in early- and mid-October respectively. The R520 chip is expected to support hardware accelerated high-definition H.264 Advanced Video Codec. Furthermore, the chip will have “Kaleidoscope Consumer Electronics quality display controller”, as it was reported earlier.

ATI has new multimedia products on the pipeline too.