Patents by Inventor Thomas L. Button

Thomas L. Button 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: 7890576
    Abstract: Described is a technology by which by which information (an electronic note from a producer) that is available for delivery to a client consumer is only selectively delivered. The selective delivery may be based on metadata associated with the information, client identity data and other criteria, including a location of a client device. The information to selectively deliver may be obtained from an external information source, or generated by a service, such as when the user is near a location of interest. The client may report location changes, such as a rate corresponding to a rate of location change of the client. An information service scale to any practical number of clients via client state servers and location (of interest) servers, with each client state server associated with a set of one or more clients, and each location server associated with a set of one or more regions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 2006
    Date of Patent: February 15, 2011
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Thomas L. Button, James Robert Hamilton
  • Publication number: 20090157527
    Abstract: A multi-merchant purchasing system is configured to identify downloadable products selected by a user for purchase. The identified downloadable products are offered by multiple merchants. The multi-merchant purchasing system enables the user to purchase all of the downloadable products in a single transaction. Merchant services are provided by the merchants to facilitate the purchasing of offered items. Interfaces are provided by the multi-merchant purchasing system and merchant services for the system and the services to interact. The interfaces provided by the merchant services enable the multi-merchant purchasing system to obtain information such as item metadata, purchase summary data, locations for downloading the purchased products, locations for obtaining support, and download verification data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 18, 2009
    Publication date: June 18, 2009
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Vikram Bhambri, Deirdre L. Walsh, Paul C. Sausville, Raj Biyani, Thomas L. Button, Sean Nolan, Susan Warren, Matthew D. Hempey
  • Patent number: 7548889
    Abstract: A multi-merchant purchasing system is configured to identify downloadable products selected by a user for purchase. The identified downloadable products are offered by multiple merchants. The multi-merchant purchasing system enables the user to purchase all of the downloadable products in a single transaction. Specifically, the multi-merchant purchasing system determines payment information associated with the user and, with minimum user-interaction, sends the payment information to applications associated with the merchants for processing. The multi-merchant purchasing system may also be configured to receive purchase information from the merchant applications and maintains the purchase information for the user in a locker. The multi-merchant purchasing system may further be configured to automatically download and install the purchased product onto the user's computing device through a software assistant.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 24, 2005
    Date of Patent: June 16, 2009
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Vikram Bhambri, Deirdre L. Walsh, Paul C. Sausville, Raj Biyani, Thomas L. Button, Sean Nolan, Susan Warren, Matthew D. Hempey
  • Publication number: 20090006194
    Abstract: Described is a technology by which an advertisement is selected for output on a mobile (e.g., vehicle navigation) system based on contextual data, including current state data from a location-sensing (e.g., GPS) device. The advertisement may be an image displayed at a location on a map corresponding to a physical location of the advertiser. The contextual data may include location, direction and destination data, user preference data and user-provided data such as calendar, task and/or contacts data. Examples of other contextual data include age data, gender data, number of vehicle occupants data, vehicle make data, vehicle model data, and/or vehicle style data. In one aspect, the user may interact with the advertisement, e.g., to communicate an order for a product or service corresponding to the advertisement.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 27, 2007
    Publication date: January 1, 2009
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Prashant Sridharan, Thomas L. Button
  • Publication number: 20080114829
    Abstract: Described is a technology by which by which information (an electronic note from a producer) that is available for delivery to a client consumer is only selectively delivered. The selective delivery may be based on metadata associated with the information, client identity data and other criteria, including a location of a client device. The information to selectively deliver may be obtained from an external information source, or generated by a service, such as when the user is near a location of interest. The client may report location changes, such as a rate corresponding to a rate of location change of the client. An information service scale to any practical number of clients via client state servers and location (of interest) servers, with each client state server associated with a set of one or more clients, and each location server associated with a set of one or more regions.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 13, 2006
    Publication date: May 15, 2008
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Thomas L. Button, James Robert Hamilton