Patents by Inventor W. Earl Greathouse

W. Earl Greathouse 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).

  • Task-oriented presentation of auxiliary content to increase user interaction performance
    Patent number: 9652543
    Abstract: Auxiliary content provided in addition to search results is selected and presented to aid the user in completing tasks and increasing user interaction performance. Auxiliary content is processed utilizing existing search engine categorization and identification mechanisms, thereby facilitating the determination of similarities between the auxiliary content and indexed content that is identified as being responsive to a search query. At least some of the search results identified as being responsive to the search query are compared to auxiliary content to identify similarities, including visual similarities. Similar auxiliary content are selected to aid the user in completing tasks, and such selected auxiliary content is provided with the search results, including in a visually distinct or separated manner.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2014
    Date of Patent: May 16, 2017
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: W. Earl Greathouse, Meenaz Merchant, Shannon Westphal, Patrick Haluptzok
  • TASK-ORIENTED PRESENTATION OF AUXILIARY CONTENT TO INCREASE USER INTERACTION PERFORMANCE
    Publication number: 20160179969
    Abstract: Auxiliary content provided in addition to search results is selected and presented to aid the user in completing tasks and increasing user interaction performance. Auxiliary content is processed utilizing existing search engine categorization and identification mechanisms, thereby facilitating the determination of similarities between the auxiliary content and indexed content that is identified as being responsive to a search query. At least some of the search results identified as being responsive to the search query are compared to auxiliary content to identify similarities, including visual similarities. Similar auxiliary content are selected to aid the user in completing tasks, and such selected auxiliary content is provided with the search results, including in a visually distinct or separated manner.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 22, 2014
    Publication date: June 23, 2016
    Inventors: W. Earl Greathouse, Meenaz Merchant, Shannon Westphal, Patrick Haluptzok