Patents Examined by Dibson Sanchez
  • Patent number: 9282381
    Abstract: Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for performing an action during playback based on a media manifest file. A system, such as a media player, configured to practice the method receives a media manifest, extracts, from the media manifest, a list of media chunks and at least one tag associated with the list of media chunks. The list of media chunks can describe two or more separate media assets. Then the system parses the at least one tag to identify an action to perform during playback and a playback position to perform the action. The system retrieves, for playback, at least one media chunk associated with the playback position from the list of media chunks, and, during playback of the at least one media chunk and at the playback position, performs the action. Modifying the media playback control can include temporarily disabling a media playback control.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 17, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2016
    Assignee: CBS Interactive Inc.
    Inventors: Jignesh Yashwant Dhruv, Shalitha Arosha Senanayake, Christopher Peter Xiques
  • Patent number: 9270368
    Abstract: Methods and apparatuses are provided to employ an enhanced Loss of Signal (ELOS) function in network equipment (NE) such as an Ethernet switch that is coupled to an optical path by a transceiver (e.g., an SFP). Diagnostics such as optical path receive (Rx) level from the transceiver are used by the ELOS function to regenerate LOS status from the transceiver when either LOS or designated low Rx level conditions exist. By generating an enhanced LOS (ELOS) on a designated low Rx level, the ELOS function ensures a failing data path is removed before an undesirable amount of errors occur to enhance Ethernet path selection and improve Carrier Ethernet quality of service.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 2, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 23, 2016
    Assignee: HUBBELL INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Peter Bradley Schmitz, Mark Christopher Orton
  • Patent number: 9258057
    Abstract: A server is configured to manage second positional information, which shows a location of the lighting device, so that the second positional information is associated with the ID information of the lighting device. The server is configured to determine whether or not the ID information received from the receiving terminal is justifiable based on the second positional information, which corresponds to the ID information received from the receiving terminal, and the first positional information, which is received from the receiving terminal. The server is configured to reply, to the receiving terminal, the service information corresponding to the ID information received from the receiving terminal when determining that the ID information received from the receiving terminal is justifiable. The server is configured not to reply the service information to the receiving terminal when determining that the ID information received from the receiving terminal is not justifiable.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 19, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 9, 2016
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Shigeaki Yamasaki, Eiji Shiohama, Shojirou Kido
  • Patent number: 9252904
    Abstract: The disclosed methods and apparatuses provide a unique and cost efficient approach to using traffic channels of an optical mesh network, and sometimes optical supervisory channels, for carrying timing information (e.g., BITS timing signals), thus eliminating the need to use external BITS sources at remote add/drop nodes of a network. Planning the distribution of timing in such an optical mesh network includes identifying in the network a source node associated with an external timing source, identifying optical light paths between nodes in the network, and, for nodes other than the source node, selecting optical light paths originating either directly or indirectly from the source node to use to derive timing information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 1, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 2, 2016
    Assignee: Coriant Operations, Inc.
    Inventors: Abhijit S. Chitambar, Ramasubramanian Anand, Kenneth M. Fisher
  • Patent number: 9252876
    Abstract: The invention relates to a hybrid communication apparatus for high-rate data transmission between moving and/or stationary platforms, comprising at least one transmission and reception device, wherein the transmission engineering used is radio-frequency engineering. The invention provides for light waves to be used for the data transmission either as an alternative or in addition. The transmission and reception devices (2) comprise a radio-frequency transmitter/receiver (9) and a multiplicity of optical transmitters/receivers (10) which are arranged in annular fashion around the radio-frequency transmitter/receiver (9).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 6, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 2, 2016
    Assignees: SYNOPTA GmbH
    Inventors: Edgar Fischer, Bernhard Wandernoth, Reinhard Czichy
  • Patent number: 9246748
    Abstract: An optical channel data unit (ODU) switch includes a set of two or more client cards, a set of two or more line cards, and a set of two or more switch cards. Each switch card is connected to all client cards, all line cards, and all other switch cards, and each client card, line card and switch card includes control logic for managing an operation of the ODU switch in a distributed manner.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 26, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 26, 2016
    Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.
    Inventors: Chunjie Duan, Ghulam Bhatti, Kieran Parsons, Kazuumi Koguchi, Soichiro Kametani
  • Patent number: 9246582
    Abstract: Novel tools and techniques that can be used to detect network impairment, including but not limited to impairment of optical fiber networks. In an aspect, such tools and techniques can be deployed at relatively low cost, allowing pervasive deployment throughout a network. In another aspect, such tools and techniques can take advantage of a “dying gasp,” in which a network element detects a sudden drop in received optical (or electrical) power, resolution, etc. at short time scales and sends a notification across the network before the connection is completely compromised. In yet another aspect, some tools can include a supervisory function to analyze aspects of the dying gasp with the goal to determine network segments associated with an impairment and an estimate of the location of an impairment within the network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 24, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 26, 2016
    Assignee: CenturyLink Intellectual Property LLC
    Inventors: Mike Fargano, Michael D. Sprenger
  • Patent number: 9245443
    Abstract: A passenger services system of an aircraft includes a cabin services system of a passenger service unit in the aircraft. The passenger service unit is associated with a passenger seat of the aircraft. The passenger services system further includes an infrared transmitting unit associated with the passenger seat. The infrared transmitting unit is configured to send signals to control operation of the cabin services system. The passenger services system includes a control unit including an infrared receiver. The control unit is associated with the passenger service unit. The infrared receiver is configured to receive the signals from the infrared transmitting unit. The control unit is configured to control the operation of the cabin services system in response to receiving the signals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 21, 2013
    Date of Patent: January 26, 2016
    Assignee: The Boeing Company
    Inventors: Yakentim Ibrahim, Stephen L. Scown, Mark Gus Mehlhaff, Casey C. Regan
  • Patent number: 9240843
    Abstract: In some embodiments, an apparatus includes a coherent optical receiver that can receive during a first time period a set of in-phase signals and a set of quadrature signals having a skew from the set of in-phase signals. The coherent receiver can blindly determine a delay between the set of in-phase signals and the set of quadrature signals based on the set of in-phase signals and the set of quadrature signals. The delay includes an intersymbol portion and an intrasymbol portion. The coherent optical receiver can apply the delay at a second time after the first time period such that a skew after the second time is less than the skew at the first time period.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 28, 2012
    Date of Patent: January 19, 2016
    Assignee: Juniper Networks, Inc.
    Inventors: Christian Malouin, Philip A. Thomas, Murat Arabaci, Bo Zhang, Theodore J. Schmidt, Roberto Marcoccia
  • Patent number: 9214790
    Abstract: A filtered laser array assembly generally includes an array of laser emitters coupled between external modulators and an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG). Each of the laser emitters emits light across a plurality of wavelengths including, for example, channel wavelengths in an optical communication system. The AWG filters the emitted light from each of the laser emitters at different channel wavelengths associated with each of the laser emitters. Lasing cavities are formed between each of the laser emitters and a back reflector coupled to an output of the AWG such that laser output from the laser emitters is provided at the respective channel wavelengths of the reflected, filtered light. The external modulators enable high speed modulation of the laser output. The modulated laser output may then be optically multiplexed to produce an aggregate optical signal including multiple channel wavelengths.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 3, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 15, 2015
    Assignee: Applied Optoelectronics, Inc.
    Inventors: Jun Zheng, Stefan Murry, Wen-Yen Hwang
  • Patent number: 9210487
    Abstract: Embodiments provide a methodology for designing a large-scale non-blocking OCS using a multi-stage folded CLOS switch architecture for use in datacenter networks and fiber-rich backbone network POPs. One aspect employs a folded CLOS architecture because of its ease of implementation, enabling the topology to scale arbitrarily with increasing number of stages. The fraction of ports allocated for internal switch wiring (overhead) also increases with the number of stages. Design decisions are made to carefully optimize the insertion loss per module, number of ports per module, number of stages and the total scale required. Other embodiments include folded CLOS switch architectures having at least two stages. In one example, power monitoring may be included only on the leaf switches.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 11, 2015
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2015
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Xiaoxue Zhao, Amin Vahdat, Hong Liu
  • Patent number: 9184854
    Abstract: An optical communication system includes a digital signal processer coupled to the coherent receiver, said coherent receiver including a nonlinearity compensation module for compensating for nonlinear effects in fiber in the optical link for increasing capacity or transmission distance of the fiber, the nonlinearity compensation module includes a spectral slicing of the signal into bands, computing nonlinear interaction between the bands with parameters opposite to those of the fiber to reverse the non-linear effects in the fiber, and only certain nonlinear interactions between bands are considered thereby reducing complexity of the nonlinearity compensation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 2, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 10, 2015
    Assignee: NEC Laboratories America, Inc.
    Inventors: Eduardo F. Mateo, Fatih Yaman, Dayou Qian, Ting Wang
  • Patent number: 9178617
    Abstract: In order to reduce the circuit size for a chromatic dispersion pre-equalization operation, an optical multilevel signal pre-equalization circuit is provided with: (1) a plurality of look-up tables in which a string of middle codes utilizing a symmetry of a signal constellation of a multilevel code or a string of middle codes represented by polar coordinates is stored in association with a waveform response component; and (2) one or more operation circuits to which the waveform response component corresponding to a multilevel signal to be transmitted is inputted from the plurality of look-up tables, and which outputs a pre-equalized output waveform corresponding to the multilevel signal by operating the waveform response components outputted from different look-up tables.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 26, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2015
    Assignee: HITACHI, LTD.
    Inventor: Nobuhiko Kikuchi
  • Patent number: 9172492
    Abstract: The present invention discloses a time/wavelength-division multiplexed passive optical network (TWPON), which has an optical splitter (21) and a waveguide grating router (WGR) (22) disposed at a remote node (RN) (20). The optical splitter (21) and the WGR (22) can be connected in a cascade or in a parallel such that the present invention can use less number of wavelengths to increase transmission capacity or increase the number of users. A channel fault monitoring (CFM) module provided at an optical line terminal (OLT) is utilized to locate fiber breaks among distribution fibers. The TWPON of the present invention can provide TDM-PON, WDM-PON, and Hybrid PON co-existing platform with less wavelengths channel fault monitoring mechanism.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 15, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2015
    Assignee: NATIONAL TAIWAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
    Inventor: San-Liang Lee
  • Patent number: 9154232
    Abstract: In order to allow reception in which receive sensitivity does not depend upon polarization state in reception of a multi-level phase optical signal, in this optical reception method, a multi-level phase optical signal of a single polarization is separated into a first optical signal and a second optical signal of which polarizations are mutually orthogonal, the ratio of the power of the first optical signal to the power of the second signal is calculated, and the difference between the phase of the first optical signal and the phase of second optical signal is calculated as an amount of compensation, whereupon, on the basis of the ratio and the amount of compensation, the first optical signal and the second optical signal are combined using a maximal ratio combining method, and the amount of compensation is modified on the basis of the ratio.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 9, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 6, 2015
    Assignee: NEC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Kazuomi Endo, Yoichi Hashimoto
  • Patent number: 9130691
    Abstract: An optical node includes a wavelength splitter configured to split optical signals comprising multiple optical wavelengths into separate outputs, with each of the separate outputs having a different wavelength. The optical node further includes a detector configured to detect optical signals associated with packets at each of the separate outputs, and determine a modulation applied to the optical signals at each of the separate outputs. The optical node also includes a processing unit configured to identify destination optical nodes for the packets based on the determined modulation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 25, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 8, 2015
    Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Inc.
    Inventors: Tiejun J. Xia, Glenn A. Wellbrock
  • Patent number: 9131289
    Abstract: A software-defined (SD) optical network is disclosed. An SD optical line terminal (OLT) includes a global SD controller, one or more SD OLT drivers connected to the global SD controller, and an underlying hardware component connected to each of said one or more SD OLT drivers. An SD optical network unit (ONU) includes a local SD controller, one or more SD optical network unit (ONU) drivers connected to the local SD controller, and an underlying hardware component connected to each of said one or more SD ONU drivers, wherein the local SD controller manages said one or more SD ONU drivers by issuing commands communicated to said one or more SD ONU drivers, and wherein each of said one or more SD ONU drivers implements a required function on the underlying hardware component. Other apparatuses, systems, and methods also are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 12, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 8, 2015
    Assignee: NEC Laboratores America, Inc.
    Inventors: Neda Cvijetic, Maria Ioanna Angelou, Ankitkumar Patel, Milorad Cvijetic, Philip Nan Ji, Ting Wang
  • Patent number: 9112604
    Abstract: There is provided a method for determining an in-band noise parameter, such as the Optical Signal-to-Noise Ratio (OSNR), on an optical signal-under-test (SUT) propagating along an optical communication link and comprising a data-carrying signal contribution of any arbitrary degree of polarization and a noise contribution. A spectral shape trace of data-carrying signal contribution in the SUT is estimated using a reference optical spectrum trace of a reference signal which comprises a data-carrying signal contribution that is spectrally representative of the data-carrying signal contribution of the SUT and a noise contribution which is at least approximately known. The data-carrying signal contribution is mathematically discriminated from said noise contribution in the SUT using the spectral shape trace and the test optical spectrum trace. The in-band noise parameter is then determined at least from the mathematically discriminated noise contribution.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2011
    Date of Patent: August 18, 2015
    Assignee: EXFO INC.
    Inventors: Daniel Gariepy, Gang He
  • Patent number: 9106984
    Abstract: In a PON system, an ONU includes a receive buffer that stores therein a signal in a downstream direction transmitted from an OLT and a PON control unit that controls transition to a power-saving state and transition to a normal state for the reception buffer. The OLT includes a transmission buffer that stores transmission data to be transmitted to the ONU and the PON control unit that transmits the downstream power-saving-state transition request that requests the ONU to transition to the downstream power-saving state when it is determined that transmission data addressed to the ONU is not present in the transmission buffer. The PON control unit sets the reception buffer to a power-saving state for a predetermined downstream sleep time requested based on the downstream power-saving-state transition request.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 21, 2009
    Date of Patent: August 11, 2015
    Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
    Inventors: Hiroaki Mukai, Kaori Mie, Koshi Sugimura
  • Patent number: 9097790
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for providing RF-photonic filtering link. Specifically, one embodiment is an apparatus comprising a radio frequency (RF)-photonic filter for filtering an RF signal, where the RF-photonic filter comprises a loop comprising an electro-optical modulator, an optical fiber, a photo detector. Another embodiment is a method of operating an RF-photonic filter comprising applying a reference signal to the RF-photonic filter; selecting a reference frequency for the RF-photonic filter upon the RF-photonic filter locking to the reference frequency, disconnecting the reference signal; and applying an RF input signal to the RF-photonic filter to lock the RF input signal to the RF-photonic filter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 2, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 4, 2015
    Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army
    Inventor: Weimin Zhou