Patent 7417680 was granted and assigned to Hitachi on August, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The invented apparatus includes a part of measuring the duration of activation of a select button on its control pad. When the select button is activated longer than a predetermined period, the apparatus enters a mode of continuously selecting multiple thumbnails for selecting a plurality of successive thumbnails. During this mode, after selecting a range of successive thumbnails with a cursor positioning mechanism on the control pad, when the select button is activated, it becomes determinate that the thumbnails in the selected range be selected and the apparatus exits the mode of continuously selecting multiple thumbnails.