This week, several sites noticed the existence of a new patent application at the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office describing what could be an "active desktop" feature for Leopard.

The patent specifically relates a technology that will make the system's desktop to show other things than just desktop pictures. It will allow animations, transitions and any kind of data to be displayed on the desktop depending on what you are doing or which application you are using.

It will use hardware resources (GPU or CPU) and will probably have access to APIs such as CoreAnimation, CoreImage and CoreVideo.

The patent doesn't excplicitly mention Mac OS X Leopard but we can assume this will be one of the secret features mentioned by the company's CEO the day Leopard was unveiled.