Patents by Inventor Owen Joseph Strain

Owen Joseph Strain 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: 9275096
    Abstract: The present technology includes an optimized b-tree. To improve concurrent access, a read lock can be applied to traversed nodes of a b-tree in a lock coupling. A read locked node can be promoted to a write locked node upon a determination that the node is likely to be modified, wherein the locked node first restricts access to further functions and then applies a write lock to the node when all existing functions accessing the node end. If one of the other functions attempts to promote the later function can be canceled and removed from the tree. A node can be promoted if the node is likely to be modified when considering multiple factors such as type of function, whether it is a leaf node, the number of keys in the node, or the number of keys in a child node.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 17, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2016
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Owen Joseph Strain, Wenguang Wang
  • Patent number: 8924739
    Abstract: Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for performing in-place encryption. A system configured to practice the method receives a request from a user to encrypt an unencrypted volume of a computing device and identifies, generates, and/or randomly selects a volume key. Then the system converts the unencrypted volume to an encryptable format divided into portions. The system then encrypts, based on the volume key, the encryptable volume, portion by portion, to enable the user to use the computing device while encrypting. The system can maintain an encryption progress status and display the encryption progress status. The system can monitor disk accesses to the encryptable volume, and, when the disk accesses exceed a first threshold, apply a back-off algorithm to stop encrypting until the disk accesses fall below a second threshold. Thus, the computing device can be used while the encryption occurs in the background.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 5, 2011
    Date of Patent: December 30, 2014
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Deric S. Horn, Joseph Sokol, Jr., Owen Joseph Strain, Wenguang Wang
  • Publication number: 20130185271
    Abstract: The present technology includes an optimized b-tree. To improve concurrent access, a read lock can be applied to traversed nodes of a b-tree in a lock coupling. A read locked node can be promoted to a write locked node upon a determination that the node is likely to be modified, wherein the locked node first restricts access to further functions and then applies a write lock to the node when all existing functions accessing the node end. If one of the other functions attempts to promote the later function can be canceled and removed from the tree. A node can be promoted if the node is likely to be modified when considering multiple factors such as type of function, whether it is a leaf node, the number of keys in the node, or the number of keys in a child node.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 17, 2012
    Publication date: July 18, 2013
    Applicant: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Owen Joseph Strain, Wenguang Wang
  • Publication number: 20120173882
    Abstract: Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for performing in-place encryption. A system configured to practice the method receives a request from a user to encrypt an unencrypted volume of a computing device and identifies, generates, and/or randomly selects a volume key. Then the system converts the unencrypted volume to an encryptable format divided into portions. The system then encrypts, based on the volume key, the encryptable volume, portion by portion, to enable the user to use the computing device while encrypting. The system can maintain an encryption progress status and display the encryption progress status. The system can monitor disk accesses to the encryptable volume, and, when the disk accesses exceed a first threshold, apply a back-off algorithm to stop encrypting until the disk accesses fall below a second threshold. Thus, the computing device can be used while the encryption occurs in the background.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 5, 2011
    Publication date: July 5, 2012
    Applicant: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Deric S. Horn, Joseph Sokol, JR., Owen Joseph Strain, Wenguang Wang