Patents by Inventor Eric C. Hill

Eric C. Hill 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).

  • Patent number: 6161121
    Abstract: A system and method are disclosed that enable exclusive rights in generic goods to be transferred from one party to another. A party holds an exclusive right to a good through a rescindable capability. When two parties agree on a transfer of the exclusive right to the good, a goods description memorializing the agreement is created which is in synergy with the rescindable capability. The goods description includes an acquire method that is the only method that can extract rights from the rescindable capability with which it is in synergy. The object from which the generic right is being transferred sends a message to the recipient with a reference to the rescindable capability. Upon receiving the message, the recipient invokes the acquire method of the referenced goods description, which returns a new rescindable capability that encompasses the generic right just transferred. Once the recipient holds a reference to the new rescindable capability, the sender has had its rights rescinded.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 1, 1996
    Date of Patent: December 12, 2000
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Norman Hardy, E. Dean Tribble, Mark S. Miller, John D. Corbett, Eric C. Hill, Christopher T. Hibbert
  • Patent number: 6049838
    Abstract: A system and method is disclosed that provides persistent capabilities for distributed, object-oriented applications running on generally available hardware. The disclosed system and method operate in a transparent distributed object system where inter-process messaging between the program objects is effected by paired transport managers, proxies and matched in-table and out-table slots. Each object needing to communicate with an object in another address space does so by transparently issuing messages to that object's local proxy. Each process provides a registrar that includes a secret code table wherein an object is registered with a unique, practically unguessable secret code. Anticipating the need to re-establish object-proxy links following a inter-process communications fault, proxies are made revivable, meaning that their links with corresponding remote objects can be revived following a communications interruption.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 1, 1996
    Date of Patent: April 11, 2000
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Mark S. Miller, Norman Hardy, E. Dean Tribble, Christopher T. Hibbert, Eric C. Hill
  • Patent number: 5960087
    Abstract: A distributed garbage collection system and method is disclosed that is compatible with local ref-count or full garbage collection and that ensures that no local object's storage is deleted by the local garbage collector unless it is certain that there are no actual or potential remote references to that local object. The disclosed system and method are implemented in the context of a transparent distributed object system in which communications between objects in different processes are enabled by dedicated proxy objects that are linked to corresponding remote objects via a pair of transport objects. Additional proxy holder objects and proxy holder proxies ensure that objects for which third-party object references are passed (i.e., where one object in a first process passes a remote object in a second process a reference to a third object in a third process) are not collected until a direct link is established between the remote object in the second process and the third object in the third object space.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 1, 1996
    Date of Patent: September 28, 1999
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: E. Dean Tribble, Mark S. Miller, Norman Hardy, Jacob Y. Levy, Eric C. Hill, Christopher T. Hibbert
  • Patent number: 5852666
    Abstract: A system providing capability security for distributed object systems is disclosed. The basic tenet of capability security is that the right to do something to an object (e.g., invoke a particular object's methods) is represented solely by the holding of a reference to that object. In each of the preferred embodiments described herein, an object is presumed to hold legitimately a reference to a particular object only if the object knows some unpublicized (except under the conditions required by capability security) key associated with the particular object. That is, an object's key is required along with the object's reference. So that capability security is preserved when object references are passed between objects in different processes, the object references being passed are encrypted upon transmission and then decrypted upon arrival at their intended destination.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 1, 1996
    Date of Patent: December 22, 1998
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Mark S. Miller, E. Dean Tribble, Norman Hardy, Eric C. Hill, Christopher T. Hibbert
  • Patent number: 5781633
    Abstract: A system providing capability security for distributed object systems is disclosed. The basic tenet of capability security is that the right to do something to an object (e.g., invoke a particular object's methods) is represented solely by the holding of a reference to that object. In each of the preferred embodiments described herein, an object is presumed to hold legitimately a reference to a particular object only if the object knows some unpublicized (except under the conditions required by capability security) key associated with the particular object. That is, an object's key is required along with the object's reference. So that capability security is preserved when object references are passed between objects in different processes, the object references being passed are encrypted upon transmission and then decrypted upon arrival at their intended destination.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 1, 1996
    Date of Patent: July 14, 1998
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: E. Dean Tribble, Mark S. Miller, Norman Hardy, Christopher T. Hibbert, Eric C. Hill