Patents by Inventor James Robert Blair

James Robert Blair 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: 11645947
    Abstract: This disclosure describes a tabletop game assistant system configured to ingest and guide tangible games (such as board games, card games, etc.) using natural language interaction and image capture/visual display components. The system can include features enabling a game developer to “teach” the system the rules of a game using natural language, such as written instructions, to reduce or eliminate the need for writing dedicated code. The system may process images of a game board and/or tokens such as game pieces and/or cards to further generate game data in the form of a logical game model. The system can use the game data to guide human players of the game and, in some cases, participate as a player itself. The system may further be configured to observe a game and detect invalid actions, answer questions regarding the rules, and suggest moves. The system may provide additional utilities such as generating a random output (e.g., rolling virtual dice) and learning to recognize new game pieces.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2020
    Date of Patent: May 9, 2023
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: James Robert Blair, Mark Chien, Farah Lynn Houston, Steven T Rabuchin
  • Patent number: 11600263
    Abstract: This disclosure describes a tabletop game assistant system configured to ingest and guide tangible games (such as board games, card games, etc.) using natural language interaction and image capture/visual display components. The system can include features enabling a game developer to “teach” the system the rules of a game using natural language, such as written instructions, to reduce or eliminate the need for writing dedicated code. The system may process images of a game board and/or tokens such as game pieces and/or cards to further generate game data in the form of a logical game model. The system can use the game data to guide human players of the game and, in some cases, participate as a player itself. The system may further be configured to observe a game and detect invalid actions, answer questions regarding the rules, and suggest moves. The system may provide additional utilities such as generating a random output (e.g., rolling virtual dice) and learning to recognize new game pieces.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 7, 2023
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: James Robert Blair, Mark Chien, Farah Lynn Houston, Steven T Rabuchin
  • Patent number: 11250857
    Abstract: Exemplary embodiments relate to using a voice user interface for creating a poll to send to users. A poll requestor can create a poll using voice instructions and specify response options and setup information. After creating the poll, the system broadcasts it to users who can respond to the poll. The poll may be broadcasted while a user is receiving content. The users can respond using a voice user interface. The system compiles the responses and provides them to the poll requestor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 26, 2019
    Date of Patent: February 15, 2022
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Eric Sungmin Kim, Greg Roberts, Daniel Zi Wang, Dylan Robert House, Luis Valencia, Paul Damian Tidwell, John Benjamin Dalin, Steven T. Rabuchin, James Robert Blair, Vicky Ge
  • Patent number: 10977518
    Abstract: Techniques for generating and utilizing machine learning based adaptive instructions for annotation are described. An annotation service can use models to identify edge case data elements predicted to elicit differing annotations from annotators, “bad” data elements predicted to be difficult to annotate, and/or “good” data elements predicted to elicit matching or otherwise high-quality annotations from annotators. These sets of data elements can be automatically incorporated into annotation job instructions provided to annotators, resulting in improved overall annotation results via having efficiently and effectively “trained” the annotators how to perform the annotation task.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2019
    Date of Patent: April 13, 2021
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Rahul Sharma, Vikram Madan, James Robert Blair, Charles Bell
  • Patent number: 10026099
    Abstract: Tracking waiting lists associated with merchants and presenting deals to users based on adding the users to waiting lists is described. A service provider may enable merchants to track waiting lists associated with their own services and services of other merchants. Users may be automatically added to waiting lists of merchants based at least in part on a service provider determining that a user is at a geographic location of a merchant. Based at least in part on adding a user to a waiting list for a particular merchant, the service provider may access and select deals from one or more alternative merchants. The one or more alternative merchants may not have waiting lists or may have waiting lists with fewer groups than the waiting list for the particular merchant. The service provider may offer the deals to the user via a user device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 15, 2014
    Date of Patent: July 17, 2018
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Siddharth Vivek Joshi, David Aronchick, James Robert Blair, Canku Alp Calargun, Hyma Srinivasa Murthy, Vishal Bethur Sathyamurthy, Scott Kerns Windsor