Patents Represented by Attorney David A. Dagg
  • Patent number: 8195746
    Abstract: A system for providing automatic off-line availability of shared document content linked in electronic mail (“email”) messages. Documents indicated by links in processed email messages may accessed when a client system user is working either online or offline. A software component operates to read through email messages sent to a client system user, and to locate messages including links to content stored on the server system. The software component accesses the content indicated by the links contained in the email messages, and moves the content onto the client system for offline access. The software component may include a periodically scheduled agent, and/or a component that is called just prior to the client system or email application going offline.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 11, 2005
    Date of Patent: June 5, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Niklas Heidloff, Michael R. O'Brien, Hardy Groeger
  • Patent number: 8196099
    Abstract: A method and system for updating templated application design, which facilitates the later ‘undoing’ of the design update is provided. The method intercepts all design update requests and automatically creates and stores a description of the pre-update version of the application. When a developer intends to apply an update to a design of an application, the application is first asked to provide a description of itself, e.g. a template. If the application comprises a plurality of components, each application component provides a description. Thus a point-in-time design description of the application is created. This is stored and can later be used for an undo method or even multi-level rollback, as required.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2005
    Date of Patent: June 5, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Stanley Kieran Jerrard-Dunne, Bill Looby
  • Patent number: 8150884
    Abstract: A system for information item categorization in which each non-leaf node in a hierarchical organization of nodes represents a category, and each leaf node represents an information item. A number P is associated with each node. For non-leaf nodes, the associated number P is selected from a subset of relatively prime elements chosen from an appropriate Unique Factorization Domain (UFD), such as a set of relatively prime numbers which are a subset of the familiar set of integers. For leaf nodes, P is set to 1. A number M is also associated with each node. For each root node, M is set to the value of P for that node. For each non-root node, M is set to the product of the M's of all parent nodes of the node and the P of that node.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 15, 2009
    Date of Patent: April 3, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Nishanth Sastry
  • Patent number: 8132188
    Abstract: A set of attached extensions is reduced before it is exposed to the code of a processing extension point to which the extensions are attached. An application calls an extension registry to obtain a list of available extensions attached to a given extension point, and filter functionality is integrated into the extension registry. Filters including filtering logic are plugged into the extension registry itself, and the extension registry selects the filter or filters to be applied for a current context. The extension registry defines an extension point to collect filters as extensions and to define an interface that those filters will implement. Each filter specifies when it should be called. As a result, an application can supply a filter that knows what extensions to expose and which to exclude in one or more contexts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 21, 2006
    Date of Patent: March 6, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Hiroyuki Miyamoto, Sami M. Shalabi
  • Patent number: 8122104
    Abstract: A system for providing XML-based asynchronous and interactive feeds for Web applications that provides a highly efficient and extensible XML Javascript framework allowing easy insertion of a comment/news feed control into any Web page. The framework allows for reading of any XML format and provides a new and easy way for modifying the look-and-feel of the control via HTML templates with familiar XPath bindings. The rendering performed through the system supports both flat and indented (“threaded”) views for a comment thread. The system improves the parsing speed of incoming XML, and supports a flexible event model for others to develop plug-ins and mashups in the spirit of Web 2.0.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Alexander Kordun, Neil J. Schultz
  • Patent number: 8122096
    Abstract: The present invention refers to a method and system to determine automatically a user specific relevance score of a message within a messaging system in a client-server environment, the message being provided with message specific meta-information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 25, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Timo Kussmaul, Hendrick Haddorp
  • Patent number: 8117222
    Abstract: A method and apparatus assigns a quantitative variable to each object (or set of objects) in a collection available to a user. The quantitative variable is referred to as the Interest Priority Value (IPV). The IPV defines a range of states of the object, between ‘accessed’ and ‘unaccessed’, and is calculated based on one or more attributes of the object. A object with the highest IPV is the most ‘unaccessed,’ and the object with the lowest IPV is the least ‘unaccessed.’ The IPV may be used in a visual representation of the collection of objects, thereby permitting a user to readily identify and obtain those objects of greatest interest to the particular user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 10, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Michael Muller
  • Patent number: 8108395
    Abstract: The present invention relates to the field of network computing, and in particular to method and system for designing a Web Portal comprising a hierarchical structure of portal pages and portlets for accessing Web contents accessible via the Portal. A typical larger enterprise's portal contains large numbers, e.g., thousands of pages and portlets. Due to the complexity of an enterprise portal, manual administration is inefficient as it is time-consuming, error-prone and thus expensive. In order to overcome these disadvantages, it is proposed that a Portal according to the invention performs some mining of the portlet markup and/or that of the portlet description in order to autonomously compute and propose an enhanced portal content structure. This helps to provide a user-friendly content structure that reflects well the relationships between portlets.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 22, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Timo Kussmaul, Andreas Arning
  • Patent number: 8108528
    Abstract: A system for verifying the identity of a chat partner during an instant messaging session. The identity of an instant messaging partner can be verified at any given moment during an instant messaging session. The status of the verification is displayed in the current session, and is contained into any subsequently saved session history file. Prior to the beginning of communication, a participant has the ability to challenge one or more other participants to verify that they are really the people assigned to the corresponding instant messaging identifiers. During the instant messaging session, participants are further allowed to challenge any other participant before going further with the session (e.g. prior to discussing confidential information or accepting files). The system addresses the problem of an unauthorized user gaining access to another user's instant messaging identifier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 11, 2007
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Doris L. Jones, Ruthie D. Lyle, Corinne M. Ryan
  • Patent number: 8095867
    Abstract: The present invention is related to displaying and/or hiding, in an electronic multi-dimensional spreadsheet on a user interface, elements of a range of cells, a range of cells including one or more contiguous elements aligned along a given spreadsheet dimension, an element of a range of cells including one or more cells along one or more of the spreadsheet dimensions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 24, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Jean-Jacques Aureglia, Frederic Bauchot
  • Patent number: 8085670
    Abstract: A system for originating connectivity fault management (CFM) frames on non-CFM aware switches is disclosed. In the disclosed system, an OAM (Operations Administration and Management) proxy networking device connected to a core Ethernet network operates with one or more CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) devices to which it is communicably connected to support CFM out to the CPE devices without requiring that the CPE devices themselves implement CFM functionality. The OAM proxy networking device generates Connectivity Check (CC) frames, Loopback reply frames, and Linktrace reply frames for MEPs (Maintenance End Points) or MIPs (Maintenance Intermediate Points) contained in communication ports on the CPEs. These CFM frames generated by the OAM proxy networking device are then sent within messages from the OAM proxy networking device to the appropriate CPE.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2005
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2011
    Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited
    Inventors: John Osswald, Michael Poon
  • Patent number: 8086968
    Abstract: A dynamic electronic mail signature manager for managing a user's electronic mail signatures inserted into electronic mail messages. An electronic mail signature is displayed within a message composition user interface such that each component of the electronic mail signature is displayed in either an “include” display state or a visually distinct “omit” display state. Electronic mail signature components that are in the “omit” display state at the time the user indicates that the electronic mail message is to be sent are not included in the transmitted message. The user can toggle signature components between the “include” and “omit” display states by selecting individual objects. The initial state of each component when the user begins to compose a message (e.g. a new message, a reply message, etc.) may be automatically determined based on user configuration information, and/or based on message history information with respect to an indicated destination.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 2, 2008
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Corey S. McCaffrey, Fang Lu, Elaine I. Kuo
  • Patent number: 8065343
    Abstract: A data storage and retrieval system with optimized categorization of information items using intelligent category selection, based on the information items that are to be checked for category membership. The set of categories for which an information item may be a candidate member is determined, and only that set of categories is checked for membership of the information item during the categorization process. The determination of which categories an information item can be a candidate member of is based on the properties defined for that information item, which are compared to the properties checked for category membership of specific categories. A category index tree may be built and maintained to support efficient determination of which categories a given information item may be a candidate member of. The efficiency of categorization provided by the disclosed techniques enables the disclosed system to maintain category definitions indefinitely with minimal performance impact.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 25, 2009
    Date of Patent: November 22, 2011
    Assignee: DECHO Corporation
    Inventor: Mark Venguerov
  • Patent number: 8056010
    Abstract: A system for conveniently removing recipients from a message being added to a message thread that enables a user to filter people from a recipient list of a message being added to a message thread. The system advantageously enables a user to filter out potential recipients based on a) their previous non-participation in the thread, b) their lack of registered interest in a topic of the thread, and/or c) their being listed only as recipients by way of their being contained in a group indicated in the recipient list.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 25, 2007
    Date of Patent: November 8, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Oliver Kieselbach, Niklas Heidloff, Gregory R. Klouda, Michael R. O'Brien
  • Patent number: 8055721
    Abstract: Collisions are detected between multiple instant messages that are sent to a given user at the same time. In response to detecting a collision, the sending users are put into a real-time, on-line negotiation that enables the sending users to determine among themselves whose instant message will be delivered next to the receiving user. This allows the sending users to make a determination of which message is most important based on their relative needs at the time. A collaborative communication session, such as a group chat, is initiated for the negotiating sending users so that they can exchange information regarding the purposes of their messages. Based on the results of this on-line negotiation between message senders, a limited number (e.g. one) of the colliding messages are next delivered to the receiving user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 20, 2009
    Date of Patent: November 8, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Patrick Joseph O'Sullivan, Liam Harpur, Barry E. Willner
  • Patent number: 8046440
    Abstract: The present invention relates to managing the administration of electronic resources accessible in an electronic network. Grid resources or services are enhanced with a presentation interface that provides an administration user-interface for configuring them. Resource-located logic configures the resource according to user inputs and actions imparted on user controls, which are sent from a respective resource to a portal server. On the portal server, a second user-interface software is implemented, able to aggregate the fragments or controls of different resources, to display such multiple controls to a user, to process user inputs imparted on those controls, and to send user control data entered via the user-interface fragments to a resource configuration interface of a respective one of the resources to perform the configuration of a respective resource via the respective resource configuration-interface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 17, 2005
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Gerd Breiter, Carsten Leue, Frank Leymann, Thomas Schaeck
  • Patent number: 8041763
    Abstract: A system that automatically obtains Web page-specific scripts to save and restore the state of a Web page. When a user bookmarks or copies a Web page URL to the clipboard, a function is called to create a page state file that is stored together with the current URL to create a bookmark. When the bookmark is loaded or pasted into the location bar of the Web browser, the system reads the URL and page state file, and loads but does not yet display the Web page indicated by the URL of the bookmark. The system then locates the Restore Page State function in the loaded Web page's script, and executes the Restore Page State function on the page state file, resulting in modification to the DOM (Document Object Model) representation of the Web page and display of the Web page to the user based on the modified DOM.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 12, 2007
    Date of Patent: October 18, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Alexander Kordun, David A. Brooks
  • Patent number: 8024361
    Abstract: A system for allowing multiple users to access and unlock shared electronic documents in a computer system. A group of users are defined as potential “lock-breaker” users for a document, such that they are automatically contacted in the event that a user wishes to unlock the document after it has been locked by another user. The lock-breaker users defined for a document are given access rights to the document that allow them to break a current lock on the document, so that it can be opened for editing, and accordingly re-locked. The lock-breaker users for a document may be organized in a hierarchy, such as a hierarchy matching the relationships of employees of an organization. The lock-breaker hierarchy may define the order in which the lock-breaker users are automatically contacted when a user wishes to access a locked document (e.g. an LDAP directory tree or social network).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 23, 2007
    Date of Patent: September 20, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Chenita D. Daughtry, Carol S. Zimmet, Robert C. Weir, Mohamed Bachiri
  • Patent number: 8015596
    Abstract: A personal credential store that aggregates a number of physical credential stores beneath an application programming interface (API) and offers tag-based credential look-up. The API of the disclosed system runs on the user's client system, and effectively hides the underlying credential store types from applications using it. The tags used to look up credentials through the API may advantageously include or consist of unique identifiers indicating the functional purpose of the desired credential. The types of physical credential store aggregated together under the disclosed API may include a local credential store, a network-resident private credential store that may be shared across multiple client systems operated by a single user, and a network-resident shareable credential store, that may be used by processes acting on behalf of the user, and/or shared by multiple users.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 28, 2004
    Date of Patent: September 6, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: John C. Wray
  • Patent number: 8010890
    Abstract: A system for creating, rendering and controlling a user interface is provided. A server generates a mark-up language document containing custom tags and conventional tags. The custom tags are associated with machine-executable instructions operating on a client device. When the client device receives the markup language document containing custom tags, the client device processes the custom tags and inserts the machine-executable code into the document at the location of the custom tags. A browser operating on the client device then executes the code and renders the document on a display device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 16, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 30, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Thomas R. Gumz, Wolfgang Schramm