Patents by Inventor Wayne Kao

Wayne Kao 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: 10863354
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a method includes receiving user input that includes an indication that the user is generating social-network content. The social network includes a number of nodes and a number of edges connecting the nodes, with at least one node corresponding to the user. The method includes accessing information about one or more places corresponding to a location of the user and automatically generating a check-in to one of the one or more places for the user. The method includes automatically associating the check-in with the content.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 24, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: FACEBOOK, INC.
    Inventors: Wayne Kao, Gregory Paul Whalin, Tal Shumski
  • Patent number: 10447632
    Abstract: A method for filtering a notification being provided from an application to a user of a social networking system based on an action of the user is described. The method starts by receiving the notification from the application to the user. If the notification is a first notification sent from the application to the user, the notification is displayed to the user with (i) a prompting message that includes a selectable opt in image, and (ii) a selectable opt out image. The prompting message includes a request to opt in to receiving notifications from the application. If the notification is not the first notification sent from the application to the user, the method determines whether to display the notification to the user by determining whether the user previously opted in to notifications from the application and whether click-through rate (CTR) of notifications from the application is greater than CTR threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 15, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Wayne Kao, Ken Deeter, Bo Zhang, Charles Jolley
  • Patent number: 10397346
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a method includes automatically determining, in response to user input that includes an indication that the user is generating social-network content, a location of the user. The social network has a number of nodes and a number of edges connecting the nodes, and at least one node corresponds to the user. The method includes sending, automatically and without requiring further user input, the location from a client computing device of the user to an external server computing device and receiving from the server an identification of one or more places corresponding to the location.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 24, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 27, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Wayne Kao, Tal Shumski
  • Patent number: 10397162
    Abstract: A social networking system notifies its users of different events and actions taking place inside the social networking system. To present notifications that are most likely to be of interest to the user, the social networking system observes the interactions of the user with notifications presented to the user and suggests an option to opt-out of notifications associated with a source based on the observed interactions. The option to opt-out of notifications associated with the source may be presented if the users interactions with the notifications presented are below a threshold. Notifications associated with a social group are presented to the user based on factors describing the group and the relation between the user and other users of the social group, for example, seniority of the user, size of the group, and the rate at which user actions associated with the group are received.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 27, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Ken Taro Deeter, Wayne Kao, Andy Lien, Sizhe Chen, Eugene Letuchy
  • Patent number: 10346499
    Abstract: A social networking system provides a personalized set of bookmarks to a user based on the user's interactions with the bookmarks and/or the items associated with the bookmarks. The personalized set of bookmarks is grouped by category, and the categories are ordered in accordance with rankings for the categories. The rankings for the categories are determined based on the highest ranked item from each category of item, and the ranking of the items is determined based on the user's interactions with the bookmarks and/or associated items.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 10, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 9, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Wayne Kao, Bo Zhang, Francis Luu, Ming Hua
  • Patent number: 10147147
    Abstract: A social networking system (SNS) may determine the integrity of a social application. In particular, the SNS can receive communications and tags associated with different subsets of the communications from the social application. Thereafter, the SNS can distribute the communications, and monitor for user interactions performed on the communications. Subsequently, feedback indicating the integrity of the social application can be provided. The feedback can be based on the user interactions performed on the communications. The feedback can also be provided according to the tags. In particular, a set of feedback information can be provided for each tag, where the set is based on the user interactions performed on the subset of communications associated with the tag. By providing feedback in this manner, A-B testing can be performed. In one embodiment, the operating state for the social application can be determined based on the integrity of the SNS.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 30, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 4, 2018
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Alex Himel, Gabriel Levi, Carl Philip Sjogreen, Wayne Kao
  • Patent number: 10057359
    Abstract: Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems receive input associated with a social networking system user account. The input includes content to be published to the social networking system. In response to the received input, one or more location suggestions are identified based upon the content. The one or more identified location suggestions are transmitted to a user device associated with the user account. Selection of a location suggestion is received. The content and selected location is published as a post within the social networking system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 18, 2017
    Date of Patent: August 21, 2018
    Assignee: FACEBOOK, INC.
    Inventors: Wayne Kao, Gregory Paul Whalin, Jan Kodovsky
  • Patent number: 10042952
    Abstract: A social networking system generates a friendship page that displays social graph data common to two or more social networking system users. A user requests the page by identifying two or more social networking system. The social networking system obtains social graph data common to the identified social networking system users and generates a friendship page containing that social graph data. The obtained social graph data may include interactions between each of the identified user and/or social networking system objects with which each of the identified users has interacted. Examples of the types of social graph data may include photos, videos, communications, content items, events, locations, friends, family members, biographical data, and location data. The friendship page may be displayed to the requesting user in a web browser or in a native application.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 7, 2018
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventor: Wayne Kao
  • Patent number: 10019765
    Abstract: A social networking system (SNS) may determine the integrity of a social application. In particular, the SNS can receive communications and tags associated with different subsets of the communications from the social application. Thereafter, the SNS can distribute the communications, and monitor for user interactions performed on the communications. Subsequently, feedback indicating the integrity of the social application can be provided. The feedback can be based on the user interactions performed on the communications. The feedback can also be provided according to the tags. In particular, a set of feedback information can be provided for each tag, where the set is based on the user interactions performed on the subset of communications associated with the tag. By providing feedback in this manner, A-B testing can be performed. In one embodiment, the operating state for the social application can be determined based on the integrity of the SNS.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 27, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 10, 2018
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Alex Himel, Gabriel Levi, Carl Philip Sjogreen, Wayne Kao
  • Publication number: 20170365015
    Abstract: A social networking system (SNS) may determine the integrity of a social application. In particular, the SNS can receive communications and tags associated with different subsets of the communications from the social application. Thereafter, the SNS can distribute the communications, and monitor for user interactions performed on the communications. Subsequently, feedback indicating the integrity of the social application can be provided. The feedback can be based on the user interactions performed on the communications. The feedback can also be provided according to the tags. In particular, a set of feedback information can be provided for each tag, where the set is based on the user interactions performed on the subset of communications associated with the tag. By providing feedback in this manner, A-B testing can be performed. In one embodiment, the operating state for the social application can be determined based on the integrity of the SNS.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 30, 2017
    Publication date: December 21, 2017
    Inventors: Alex Himel, Gabriel Levi, Carl Philip Sjogreen, Wayne Kao
  • Publication number: 20170154120
    Abstract: A social networking system provides a personalized set of bookmarks to a user based on the user's interactions with the bookmarks and/or the items associated with the bookmarks. The personalized set of bookmarks is grouped by category, and the categories are ordered in accordance with rankings for the categories. The rankings for the categories are determined based on the highest ranked item from each category of item, and the ranking of the items is determined based on the user's interactions with the bookmarks and/or associated items.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 10, 2017
    Publication date: June 1, 2017
    Inventors: Wayne Kao, Bo Zhang, Francis Luu, Ming Hua
  • Publication number: 20170126819
    Abstract: Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems receive input associated with a social networking system user account. The input includes content to be published to the social networking system. In response to the received input, one or more location suggestions are identified based upon the content. The one or more identified location suggestions are transmitted to a user device associated with the user account. Selection of a location suggestion is received. The content and selected location is published as a post within the social networking system.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 18, 2017
    Publication date: May 4, 2017
    Inventors: Wayne Kao, Gregory Paul Whalin, Jan Kodovsky
  • Patent number: 9582786
    Abstract: Machine learning models are used for ranking news feed stories presented to users of a social networking system. The social networking system divides its users into different sets, for example, based on demographic characteristics of the users and generates one model for each set of users. The models are periodically retrained. The news feed ranking model may rank news feeds for a user based on information describing other users connected to the user in the social networking system. Information describing other users connected to the user includes interactions of the other users with objects associated with news feed stories. These interactions include commenting on a news feed story, liking a news feed story, or retrieving information, for example, images, videos associated with a news feed story.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 29, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 28, 2017
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Max Gubin, Wayne Kao, David Vickrey, Alexey Maykov
  • Patent number: 9584606
    Abstract: Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems receive input associated with a social networking system user account. The input includes content to be published to the social networking system. In response to the received input, one or more location suggestions are identified based upon the content. The one or more identified location suggestions are transmitted to a user device associated with the user account. Selection of a location suggestion is received. The content and selected location is published as a post within the social networking system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 30, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 28, 2017
    Assignee: FACEBOOK, INC.
    Inventors: Wayne Kao, Gregory Paul Whalin, Jan Kodovsky
  • Patent number: 9569553
    Abstract: A social networking system provides a personalized set of bookmarks to a user based on the user's interactions with the bookmarks and/or the items associated with the bookmarks. The personalized set of bookmarks is grouped by category, and the categories are ordered in accordance with rankings for the categories. The rankings for the categories are determined based on the highest ranked item from each category of item, and the ranking of the items is determined based on the user's interactions with the bookmarks and/or associated items.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 2016
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2017
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Wayne Kao, Bo Zhang, Francis Luu, Ming Hua
  • Patent number: 9491251
    Abstract: A notification system provides notifications to a user associated with multiple user devices. The notification system selects a user device to receive a notification based on user behavior, such as user interactions with the notification system via the user device or acknowledgments of notifications received from user devices. The notification is sent to the selected user device, and the notification system waits for an acknowledgment from the selected notification system for an acknowledgement delay period. If no acknowledgment is received within the acknowledgment delay period, an additional user device is selected and the notification is sent to the additional user device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 27, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 8, 2016
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Ken Deeter, Wayne Kao
  • Patent number: 9390184
    Abstract: A social networking system receives a query associated with a user and, in response, provides a combined result set comprising objects stored by a social networking system that match the query. The combined result set comprises multiple result sets obtained from different search algorithms. The various objects stored by the social networking system may be of different types representing different concepts, such as user objects, application objects, event objects, location objects, group objects, and hub/page objects, any of which may be included in the result set. The objects of the result set may be further filtered, ordered, and/or grouped based at least in part on known relationships of the user with the objects, such as geographic distances between locations associated with the user and the objects.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 2, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 12, 2016
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Akhil Wable, Luke Andrew DeLorme, Wayne Kao, Alexandre Roche, Thomas Occhino
  • Patent number: 9391944
    Abstract: A social networking system notifies its users of different events and actions taking place inside the social networking system. To present notifications that are most likely to be of interest to the user, the social networking system observes the interactions of the user with notifications presented to the user and suggests an option to opt-out of notifications associated with a source based on the observed interactions. The option to opt-out of notifications associated with the source may be presented if the users interactions with the notifications presented are below a threshold. Notifications associated with a social group are presented to the user based on factors describing the group and the relation between the user and other users of the social group, for example, seniority of the user, size of the group, and the rate at which user actions associated with the group are received.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 12, 2016
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Ken Taro Deeter, Wayne Kao, Charles Jolley, Bo Zhang, Andrew Song
  • Publication number: 20160191438
    Abstract: A method for filtering a notification being provided from an application to a user of a social networking system based on an action of the user is described. The method starts by receiving the notification from the application to the user. If the notification is a first notification sent from the application to the user, the notification is displayed to the user with (i) a prompting message that includes a selectable opt in image, and (ii) a selectable opt out image. The prompting message includes a request to opt in to receiving notifications from the application. If the notification is not the first notification sent from the application to the user, the method determines whether to display the notification to the user by determining whether the user previously opted in to notifications from the application and whether click-through rate (CTR) of notifications from the application is greater than CTR threshold.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 3, 2016
    Publication date: June 30, 2016
    Inventors: Wayne Kao, Ken Deeter, Bo Zhang, Charles Jolley
  • Publication number: 20160179975
    Abstract: A social networking system provides a personalized set of bookmarks to a user based on the user's interactions with the bookmarks and/or the items associated with the bookmarks. The personalized set of bookmarks is grouped by category, and the categories are ordered in accordance with rankings for the categories. The rankings for the categories are determined based on the highest ranked item from each category of item, and the ranking of the items is determined based on the user's interactions with the bookmarks and/or associated items.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 2, 2016
    Publication date: June 23, 2016
    Inventors: Wayne KAO, Bo ZHANG, Francis LUU, Ming HUA