Patents by Inventor Thomas C. Hanson

Thomas C. Hanson 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: 5963861
    Abstract: A dealer-locator service is provided to mobile telephones (40) in a mobile telecommunications system (FIG. 1). When a mobile telephone initiates a call to the dealer-locator service, a mobile telephone switching office (MTSO 41) identifies the one of a plurality of base stations (20-23) through which the call is made. A dealer-locator service apparatus (43-45) then uses this base-station identification, rather than the telephone number of the calling mobile telephone, to look up in a dealer-locator database (300-301) the one of a plurality of business locations (30-33, 50-52) of the dealer that is in the vicinity of the identified base station, and hence in the vicinity of the calling mobile telephone. The apparatus then reports the address of the one business location to the caller, and optionally also causes the MTSO to connect the call to a telephone number of the one business location.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 5, 1996
    Date of Patent: October 5, 1999
    Assignee: Lucent Technologies Inc.
    Inventor: Thomas C. Hanson
  • Patent number: 5802149
    Abstract: Directory assistance (106) is used to train a voice-dialing system (107) as a part of normal voice-dialing activities, thereby avoiding the need for a separate training session. The voice-dialing system connects a caller to directory assistance when a voice-dialing attempt by the caller does not match any voice tags in the caller's voice-dialing directory (130) and the caller signals a desire to use directory assistance. The voice-dialing system monitors the call to directory assistance, and captures and stores the telephone number provided by directory assistance to the caller. After the directory assistance call is completed, the voice-dialing system asks the caller to repeat the voice tag for the telephone number, forms a data representation of the voice tag from multiple received instances of the voice tag, records the data representation of the voice tag along with the captured telephone number in the caller's voice-dialing directory, and at the caller's option initiates a call to the telephone number.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 5, 1996
    Date of Patent: September 1, 1998
    Assignee: Lucent Technologies Inc.
    Inventor: Thomas C. Hanson
  • Patent number: 5436967
    Abstract: In response to a first party (19) being on hold a call that had been established between the first party and a second party (11), the second, holding, party is given an option, by an automated arrangement such as an adjunct processor (21) associated with the first party's local switching system (15), of either remaining on hold or being called back. If the holding party chooses to be called back, the held call is torn down. Later, when the first party attempts to take the call off hold, the automated arrangement instead causes a new call to be placed to the calling telephone number of the torn-down call and to be established between the parties to serve as a substitute for the torn-down call.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 1, 1994
    Date of Patent: July 25, 1995
    Assignee: AT&T Corp.
    Inventor: Thomas C. Hanson
  • Patent number: 5394464
    Abstract: An automatically progressively-activated and reset "send-all-calls" (SAC) feature provides the following functionality. In response to receipt at a switching system of each call for a destination subscriber station that has the feature enabled, the system retrieves a stored specified period of time for which a call directed to the station is allowed to go unanswered at the station, and then shortens the stored specified period, thereby progressively hastening activation of SAC for a subsequent call. If the retrieved period is of nonzero duration, the switching system directs the received call to the destination station. If the retrieved period is of zero duration, or if the directed received call goes unanswered at the destination station for the duration of the retrieved period, the switching system redirects the call to a call-coverage facility in the manner of a standard SAC feature.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 1994
    Date of Patent: February 28, 1995
    Assignee: AT&T Corp.
    Inventors: Thomas C. Hanson, Richard P. Moleres
  • Patent number: 5315521
    Abstract: A method for producing two or more products from a production site such as an air separation plant to satisfy a given demand for each of the products in which energy consumption and the rate of product production are correlated so that product production may be determined from a conventional mixed integer linear programming model the solution of which will provide an optimum production schedule for producing product to meet total product demand at minimum energy cost over a given time horizon.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 29, 1992
    Date of Patent: May 24, 1994
    Assignee: Praxair Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Thomas C. Hanson, Dante P. Bonaquist, Michael D. Jordan
  • Patent number: 5257206
    Abstract: Statistical process control system for an air-separation plant using off-line and on-line computer means to define control chart limits, trend thresholds and dynamic models for use with on-line process variable data for determination of statistical process control.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 8, 1991
    Date of Patent: October 26, 1993
    Assignee: Praxair Technology, Inc.
    Inventor: Thomas C. Hanson
  • Patent number: 4778497
    Abstract: A process to produce liquid cryogen wherein subcooled supercritical liquid is expanded without vaporization and a portion thereof is used to carry out the subcooling by vaporization under reduced pressure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 2, 1987
    Date of Patent: October 18, 1988
    Assignee: Union Carbide Corporation
    Inventors: Thomas C. Hanson, Leslie C. Kun
  • Patent number: 4778498
    Abstract: A process to produce methane gas product with reduced product compression requirements comprising pumping liquid methane from a cryogenic nitrogen rejection plant to a high pressure thereby utilizing available excess refrigeration, and rewarming the pumped liquid methane product against incoming process streams.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 17, 1987
    Date of Patent: October 18, 1988
    Assignee: Union Carbide Corporation
    Inventors: Thomas C. Hanson, Theodore F. Fisher, Joseph A. Weber
  • Patent number: 4710212
    Abstract: A process to produce methane gas product with reduced product compression requirements comprising pumping liquid methane from a cryogenic nitrogen rejection plant to a high pressure thereby utilizing available excess refrigeration, and rewarming the pumped liquid methane product against incoming process streams.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 1986
    Date of Patent: December 1, 1987
    Assignee: Union Carbide Corporation
    Inventors: Thomas C. Hanson, Theodore F. Fisher, Joseph A. Weber
  • Patent number: 4701200
    Abstract: A process to produce helium gas from a feed to a nitrogen rejection unit comprising employing refrigeration from the nitrogen rejection unit to increase the recovery of helium by cooling crude helium prior to further processing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 1986
    Date of Patent: October 20, 1987
    Assignee: Union Carbide Corporation
    Inventors: Theodore F. Fisher, Thomas C. Hanson, Joseph A. Weber
  • Patent number: 4701201
    Abstract: A process to produce cold helium gas suitable for use as a feed to a helium liquifier comprising employing refrigeration from a nitrogen rejection unit to reduce the temperature of the helium gas just prior to its passage to the liquifier thus enabling a reduction in the liquifier energy requirement.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 1986
    Date of Patent: October 20, 1987
    Assignee: Union Carbide Corporation
    Inventors: Thomas C. Hanson, Theodore F. Fisher, Joseph A. Weber, Ravindra F. Pahade