ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,609,000, issued on April 21, was assigned to Aristocrat Technologies Inc. (Las Vegas).

"Systems and methods for providing a plurality of player selectable volatility options and replicating symbols during free games of the player selected volatility options" was invented by Daniel Marks (Decatur, Ga.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An electronic gaming machine includes a processor configured to control a display device to display a first matrix of symbol positions, and to evaluate a plurality of symbols displayed in the first matrix to determine whether to award a plurality of free games. If free games are awarded, the processor may cont...