Patents by Inventor Richard William Branson

Richard William Branson 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: 11108745
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a method includes receiving from a client computing device a request to upload a multimedia file from the client computing device to a service. The method includes identifying transcoding servers configured to receive and transcode multimedia files from client computing devices and store the transcoded multimedia files. The method includes sending a reply to the client computing device that includes job configuration information that includes an access token authorizing the client computing device to access the transcoding servers. The information specifies upload policies that include failover instructions for if a failure occurs during an upload from the client computing device to a first of the transcoding servers. The failover instructions include sending the access token to the first of the transcoding servers to resume the upload or sending the access token to a second of the transcoding servers to restart the upload.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2020
    Date of Patent: August 31, 2021
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Michel Krieger, Shayne Mikel Sweeney, Peter William Hunt, Nicholas Patrick Shortway, Richard William Branson, Alexandre Karpenko, Chen Chen, Francois Claude Fabien Jean Jules Deliége
  • Publication number: 20200169540
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a method includes receiving from a client computing device a request to upload a multimedia file from the client computing device to a service. The method includes identifying transcoding servers configured to receive and transcode multimedia files from client computing devices and store the transcoded multimedia files. The method includes sending a reply to the client computing device that includes job configuration information that includes an access token authorizing the client computing device to access the transcoding servers. The information specifies upload policies that include failover instructions for if a failure occurs during an upload from the client computing device to a first of the transcoding servers. The failover instructions include sending the access token to the first of the transcoding servers to resume the upload or sending the access token to a second of the transcoding servers to restart the upload.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 31, 2020
    Publication date: May 28, 2020
    Inventors: Michel Krieger, Shayne Mikel Sweeney, Peter William Hunt, Nicholas Patrick Shortway, Richard William Branson, Alexandre Karpenko, Chen Chen, Francois Claude Fabien Jean Jules Deliége
  • Patent number: 10554631
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a method includes by a host computing server, receiving from a client computing device, a request to upload a multimedia file from the client computing device to a service; by the host computing server, identifying one or more third-party transcoding servers, wherein the transcoding servers are configured to receive and transcode multimedia files from client computing devices and store the transcoded multimedia files; by the host computing server, sending to the client computing device, a reply that comprises addresses of the third-party transcoding servers and job configuration information, wherein the job configuration information specifies one or more upload policies and comprises an access token enabling the client computing device to access the transcoding servers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 18, 2017
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2020
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Michel Krieger, Shayne Mikel Sweeney, Peter William Hunt, Nicholas Patrick Shortway, Richard William Branson, Alexandre Karpenko, Chen Chen, Francois Claude Fabien Jean Jules Deliége
  • Patent number: 10338906
    Abstract: The disclosure is directed to controlling availability of a feature of an application without having to change a code of the application. A gate application employs a “gate” that facilitates making a feature available to a set of users without having to change the code of the application as the set of users to whom the feature is to be made available change. The gate includes parameters and criteria that can determine whether a particular feature of the application, e.g., a photo tagging feature of a social networking application, is to be made available to a particular user. If the request attributes, e.g., attributes associated with a requesting user, satisfy the criteria defined in the gate, the gate indicates to the host application to make the feature available, which then executes a portion of the code corresponding to the particular feature to make the particular feature available to the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Richard William Branson, Chenyang Wu
  • Publication number: 20170222987
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a method includes by a host computing server, receiving from a client computing device, a request to upload a multimedia file from the client computing device to a service; by the host computing server, identifying one or more third-party transcoding servers, wherein the transcoding servers are configured to receive and transcode multimedia files from client computing devices and store the transcoded multimedia files; by the host computing server, sending to the client computing device, a reply that comprises addresses of the third-party transcoding servers and job configuration information, wherein the job configuration information specifies one or more upload policies and comprises an access token enabling the client computing device to access the transcoding servers.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 18, 2017
    Publication date: August 3, 2017
    Inventors: Michel Krieger, Shayne Mikel Sweeney, Peter William Hunt, Nicholas Patrick Shortway, Richard William Branson, Alexandre Karpenko, Chen Chen, Francois Claude Fabien Jean Jules Deliége
  • Patent number: 9661106
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a method includes by a host computing server, receiving from a client computing device, a request to upload a multimedia file from the client computing device to a service; by the host computing server, identifying one or more third-party transcoding servers, wherein the transcoding servers are configured to receive and transcode multimedia files from client computing devices and store the transcoded multimedia files; by the host computing server, sending to the client computing device, a reply that comprises addresses of the third-party transcoding servers and job configuration information, wherein the job configuration information specifies one or more upload policies and comprises an access token enabling the client computing device to access the transcoding servers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 4, 2013
    Date of Patent: May 23, 2017
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Michel Krieger, Shayne Mikel Sweeney, Peter William Hunt, Nicholas Patrick Shortway, Richard William Branson, Alexandre Karpenko, Chen Chen, Francois Claude Fabien Jean Jules Deliége
  • Publication number: 20170090898
    Abstract: The disclosure is directed to controlling availability of a feature of an application without having to change a code of the application. A gate application employs a “gate” that facilitates making a feature available to a set of users without having to change the code of the application as the set of users to whom the feature is to be made available change. The gate includes parameters and criteria that can determine whether a particular feature of the application, e.g., a photo tagging feature of a social networking application, is to be made available to a particular user. If the request attributes, e.g., attributes associated with a requesting user, satisfy the criteria defined in the gate, the gate indicates to the host application to make the feature available, which then executes a portion of the code corresponding to the particular feature to make the particular feature available to the user.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 29, 2015
    Publication date: March 30, 2017
    Inventors: Richard William Branson, Chenyang Wu
  • Publication number: 20150156281
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a method includes by a host computing server, receiving from a client computing device, a request to upload a multimedia file from the client computing device to a service; by the host computing server, identifying one or more third-party transcoding servers, wherein the transcoding servers are configured to receive and transcode multimedia files from client computing devices and store the transcoded multimedia files; by the host computing server, sending to the client computing device, a reply that comprises addresses of the third-party transcoding servers and job configuration information, wherein the job configuration information specifies one or more upload policies and comprises an access token enabling the client computing device to access the transcoding servers.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 4, 2013
    Publication date: June 4, 2015
    Inventors: Michel Krieger, Shayne Mikel Sweeney, Peter William Hunt, Nicholas Patrick Shortway, Richard William Branson, Alexandre Karpenko, Chen Chen, Francois Claude Deliege