Patents by Inventor Alex Zhai

Alex Zhai has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20240075525
    Abstract: A method may include coating a substrate with a solution, where the solution includes one or more metal salts and a first solvent. The one or more metal salts may be configured to dissolve in the first solvent. The method may further include adding a second solvent to the coated substrate until one or more metal salt crystals precipitate over a surface of substrate. The second solvent may include an antisolvent where the one or more metal salts of the solution are insoluble in the second solvent. The method may further include performing a microwave heating process to apply microwave heat to the substrate while the second solvent is present to induce thermal decomposition of the one or more metal salts until one or more metal nanostructures are formed on the surface of the substrate.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 23, 2023
    Publication date: March 7, 2024
    Inventors: Alex Burnstine-Townley, Lei Zhai, Divambal Appavoo
  • Patent number: 10360536
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for ordering editing operations in collaborative editing of shared content items. The content management system can receive an edit operation from a first client for a content item that is shared for collaborative editing between the first client and a second client. In response to receiving the operation, the system can send an update to the first client including a previous operation received from the second client prior to receiving the operation from the first client, wherein the update can instruct the first client to perform a transform operation to transform a parameter of the operation according to an effect of the previous operation received from the second client. The system can then receive a result of the transform operation from the first client and update the shared content item based on the previous operation and the result of the transform operation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 3, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 23, 2019
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventors: Rian Hunter, Alex Zhai
  • Publication number: 20170330149
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for ordering editing operations in collaborative editing of shared content items. The content management system can receive an edit operation from a first client for a content item that is shared for collaborative editing between the first client and a second client. In response to receiving the operation, the system can send an update to the first client including a previous operation received from the second client prior to receiving the operation from the first client, wherein the update can instruct the first client to perform a transform operation to transform a parameter of the operation according to an effect of the previous operation received from the second client. The system can then receive a result of the transform operation from the first client and update the shared content item based on the previous operation and the result of the transform operation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 3, 2017
    Publication date: November 16, 2017
    Applicant: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventors: Rian Hunter, Alex Zhai
  • Patent number: 9747582
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for ordering editing operations in collaborative editing of shared content items. The content management system can receive an edit operation from a first client for a content item that is shared for collaborative editing between the first client and a second client. In response to receiving the operation, the system can send an update to the first client including a previous operation received from the second client prior to receiving the operation from the first client, wherein the update can instruct the first client to perform a transform operation to transform a parameter of the operation according to an effect of the previous operation received from the second client. The system can then receive a result of the transform operation from the first client and update the shared content item based on the previous operation and the result of the transform operation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 12, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 29, 2017
    Assignee: DROPBOX, INC.
    Inventors: Rian Hunter, Alex Zhai
  • Patent number: 9063949
    Abstract: The disclosed embodiments relate to a system that infers a sequence of editing operations that were applied to a document to produce an updated version of the document. During operation, the system computes a minimum edit distance between the document and the updated version of the document. During this process, the system associates a block cost with each contiguous block of characters that is changed by an editing operation and also a character cost with each character that is changed. Next, the system uses information stored during the computation to determine the sequence of editing operations which were used to achieve the minimum edit distance. The system communicates the sequence of editing operations to a remote computing device, wherein the remote computing device uses an operational transformation technique to transform the sequence of editing operations before applying the transformed sequence of editing operations to a remote version of the document.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 13, 2013
    Date of Patent: June 23, 2015
    Assignee: DROPBOX, INC.
    Inventors: Alex Zhai, Rian Hunter
  • Publication number: 20140280463
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for ordering editing operations in collaborative editing of shared content items. The content management system can receive an edit operation from a first client for a content item that is shared for collaborative editing between the first client and a second client. In response to receiving the operation, the system can send an update to the first client including a previous operation received from the second client prior to receiving the operation from the first client, wherein the update can instruct the first client to perform a transform operation to transform a parameter of the operation according to an effect of the previous operation received from the second client. The system can then receive a result of the transform operation from the first client and update the shared content item based on the previous operation and the result of the transform operation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 12, 2013
    Publication date: September 18, 2014
    Applicant: DROPBOX, INC.
    Inventors: Rian Hunter, Alex Zhai
  • Publication number: 20140279842
    Abstract: The disclosed embodiments relate to a system that infers a sequence of editing operations that were applied to a document to produce an updated version of the document. During operation, the system computes a minimum edit distance between the document and the updated version of the document. During this process, the system associates a block cost with each contiguous block of characters that is changed by an editing operation and also a character cost with each character that is changed. Next, the system uses information stored during the computation to determine the sequence of editing operations which were used to achieve the minimum edit distance. The system communicates the sequence of editing operations to a remote computing device, wherein the remote computing device uses an operational transformation technique to transform the sequence of editing operations before applying the transformed sequence of editing operations to a remote version of the document.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 13, 2013
    Publication date: September 18, 2014
    Applicant: DROPBOX, INC.
    Inventors: Alex Zhai, Rian Hunter