Patents Represented by Attorney, Agent or Law Firm David M. Shofi
  • Patent number: 6856331
    Abstract: Techniques are provided for enriching a non-linkable media representation presentable at a user terminal. In an illustrative embodiment, a hotlink canvas receives a hot link composition from an action enabling kernel and displays hotlinks in the hotlink canvas by overlaying a transparent panel on top of the non-linkable media whereby the non-linkable media becomes interactive and hyperlinkable. The hotlink canvas provides the following functions: query media current position and state; forward media position and state to the action enabling kernel; receive contending hotlink candidates from the action enabling kernel; pick one hotlink among a set of hotlink candidates; compose hotlinks by receiving hotlinks meta data from the action enabling kernel; display range contours of hotlinks on the media object by overlaying a hotlink canvas; perform an action specified; request the action enabling kernel to handle an action; and decouple hotlinks in otherwise linkable media.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 12, 1999
    Date of Patent: February 15, 2005
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Sih-Pin Subrina Chang, Shu-Chen Jeane S. Chen, Keeranoor G. Kumar, James S. Lipscomb, Jai Menon, Liang-Jie Zhang
  • Patent number: 6848004
    Abstract: A network implementing HotMedia architecture provides real time measurement and prediction of bandwidth for adaptive content delivery of rich media according to available user bandwidth. The rich media file created at the creation station is transmitted by the delivery station to the client station in steaming Java applets having a framework including a thumbnail frame and a media frame. In real-time, the client station detects the bandwidth used by the Java applet; predicts the available bandwidth for next media delivery based on the detected bandwidth and fetches the corresponding sensitive bandwidth media fame from a web server according to a linear or non-linear prediction algorithm resulting in bandwidth sensitive rich media content delivery from the delivery station to the client station for display and user interaction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 23, 1999
    Date of Patent: January 25, 2005
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Sih-Pin Subrina Chang, Shu-Chen Jeane Chen, Keeranoor G. Kumar, James S. Lipscomb, Jai Menon, Liang-Jie Zhang
  • Patent number: 6832198
    Abstract: The present invention provides a system, computer program product and a method for overlapping boundary data of an audio information track which includes ending data from a previous track and starting data from a succeeding track. By doing this, the ending data from a previous track and the beginning data from a succeeding track are available for the compression process. The compression program then manipulates the additional appended data in order to generate the compressed audio. Later, by severing the overlapping appended additional information before recombining the tracks, the resulting No-Pause CD audio stream is free from distortion and mismatch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2000
    Date of Patent: December 14, 2004
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Kha D. Nguyen, Craig Kindell, Kenneth L. Milsted, Marco M. Hurtado
  • Patent number: 6816909
    Abstract: A buffering protocol and a streaming media player which utilizes the buffering protocol designed for minimizing the occurrences of pauses during the presentation due to network congestion and for scheduling pauses at appropriate times in the presentation. The data comprises coded content information comprising a time synchronous media, together with various other sources, synchronized to appear at predetermined time points in the media presentation. The presentation is delivered in streaming fashion, so that the end user does not have to wait for the entirety of the data to be downloaded before starting the presentation. The invention does not require that media data and events data be multiplexed into a single streaming file and it does not require that the file provided to the media player be customized for prefetching of content.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 15, 1999
    Date of Patent: November 9, 2004
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Subrina Sih-Pin Chang, Jeane Shu-Chun Chen, Ephraim Feig, Liang-Jie Zhang
  • Patent number: 6795920
    Abstract: A secure-end-to-end communication system for conducting electronic business includes a web server—vault controller having personal storage vaults for users, registration and certification authorities. Each personal vault runs programs on the controller under a unique platform ID, e.g. a UNIX user ID. Data storage is provided by the controller wherein the storage is owned by the same user ID assigned to the vault. User processes running in dedicated vaults are able to communicate with other User processes running in different vaults using a secure depositor running as a module in a vault process in each vault. Messages are sent from a vault process to a specific vault rather than another vault process. There is no direct communication between vault processes. In operation, if a vault process intends for a message to go to another vault, e.g. Vault V, the sending secure depositor performs the mapping from the DN of the owner of Vault V to the DN of Vault V.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 1999
    Date of Patent: September 21, 2004
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Hamid Bacha, Robert B. Carroll
  • Patent number: 6742177
    Abstract: A method to debug application interface calls made to a tamper-resistant software module. The method comprises the steps of: loading a first application to be debugged using a debugging application, wherein the application makes one or more function calls to a tamper-resistant software module. A debugger application for symbolically debugging the first application is run and the debugger application with an initialization file that performs the steps of: loading a client application running a client socket service; loading a server application running a server socket service; loading the tamper-resistant software module with one or more function calls made thereto by the first application. The client application translates the one or more function calls made to the tamper-resistant software module during the running of the debugger application into socket calls and returns any status received from the socket calls to the first application.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2000
    Date of Patent: May 25, 2004
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: John J. Dorak, Jr., Stephen B. Cagle, Richard L. Spagna
  • Patent number: 6715077
    Abstract: An Improved CDSA system (CDSA-I) includes a standard CDSA framework coupled via an Application Program Interface to an application requiring cryptographic support. During manufacture, a cryptographic control privilege is incorporated into the application, as part of an exemption mechanism, which exemption may or may not be enforced by the CDSA framework. For maximum cryptographic strength, an application must be signed by a private key controlled by the CDSA framework vendor. Inside the CDSA framework, the corresponding public key is used to verify at runtime those applications that were appropriately signed. The CDSA framework is coupled via a Service Provider Interface (SPI) to a plurality of pluggable modules for performing cryptographic operations, storing signed digital certificates for applications, and trust policies relating to cryptographic strengths. The framework is initialized to provide the cryptographic support for the application.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 22, 2000
    Date of Patent: March 30, 2004
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Narayanan Vasudevan, Sohail Malik
  • Patent number: 6715126
    Abstract: A method is described for efficiently delivering a presentation of web content comprised of a media, such as audio or video content, having defined time increments, together with one or more other content sources, such as images or events to be displayed on a monitor, synchronized so that the one ore more other images or events are displayed at predetermined time increments in the media presentation. Furthermore, the entire presentation is delivered in streaming fashion, so that the end user does not have to wait for the entirety of the content data to be downloaded before starting the presentation, but rather can start viewing and listening to the presentation after a relatively short delay period. The media data and the other content need not reside at a single server source. An authoring tool for creating such composite time-synchronous content automatically determines the necessary information for scheduling player requests to the servers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 15, 1999
    Date of Patent: March 30, 2004
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Subrina Shih-Pan Chang, Hua Chen, Jeane Shu-Chun Chen, Ephraim Feig
  • Patent number: 6715073
    Abstract: A secure-end-to-end communication system for electronic business system and method of operation, e.g., the Internet, includes a web server—vault controller having personal storage vaults in the controller for users, registration and certification authorities. Each personal vault runs programs on the controller under a unique UNIX user ID. Data storage is provided by the controller wherein the storage is owned by the same user ID assigned to the vault. A registration authority running as a software application in the controller processes requests to issue, renew and revoke digital certificates issued by a certification authority using two pairs of public-private keys. The registration authority interacts with the vault controller to decide whether an applicant qualifies to receive a digital certificate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 1998
    Date of Patent: March 30, 2004
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Larry An, Hamid Bacha, Robert Briggs, Robert Burns, Robert B. Carroll, Mark Fisk, Hatem Ghafir, Raymond Good, Srinivasa Kasturi, Ku Lee, Drew Kittel, Lolo Lasida, Hiroshi Maruyama, Amit Pamecha, Paresh Patel, Dieter Poetzschke, Roger Reider, Khalid Asad
  • Patent number: 6693649
    Abstract: A system and method for unifying hotspot subject to non-linear transformation and interpolation in heterogeneous media representations includes a content creator for creating Rich Media, e.g. stills, animation, panorama and a delivery system including an action handler for responding to a hotspot in the Rich Media when selected by a user interacting with a projected image display. The hotspot is expressed in the media as an area defined in terms of a Euclidean, rectangular coordinate system for transformation and mapping of the media image hotspot coordinates into corresponding coordinates of a hotspot location in the projected image display. Unfortunately, the image coordinates in the media do not necessarily map directly into corresponding coordinates in the projected image. Flat media images can be linearly transformed to projected image coordinates. However, panorama media require non-linear transformation of media coordinated to projected image coordinates.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2000
    Date of Patent: February 17, 2004
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: James S. Lipscomb, Sih-Pin Subrina Chang, Shu-Chun Jeane Chen, Keeranoor G. Kumar, Jai Menon, Arun Ramchandra, Edward C. Snible, Liang-Jie Zhang
  • Patent number: 6665751
    Abstract: A media player for playing streaming media is capable of dynamically changing its play rate according to network conditions, so as to compensate for delayed packets. The player nominally plays at the prescribed data rate. When packets are delayed, instead of stopping to rebuffer, the player plays the stream slower. Audio pitch is unchanged as it is slowed, and video frame rate is slowed as necessary. A threshold is set so that slowing down beyond the threshold is not allowed. Should the buffer contents fall below a predescribed minimum, the player will then stop playing and rebuffer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 17, 1999
    Date of Patent: December 16, 2003
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Jeane Shu-Chun Chen, Ephraim Feig
  • Patent number: 6611812
    Abstract: A method to delivery encrypted digital content to a end user system for playing the content comprising the steps of: reading from a computer readable medium metadata which has previously associated with the content. A user selects from the metadata associated content to decrypt and the end user system establishes a secure connection with an authorization authority for decrypting the content. The end user system receives a secure container containing the decrypting key for decrypting at least part of the previously encrypted content as permitted. The system creates a secure container using the encrypting key from a clearing house, wherein the secure container has an encrypting key therein from the end user system; transferring the secure container to the clearing house for authentication of permission to decrypt the content.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 17, 1999
    Date of Patent: August 26, 2003
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Marco M. Hurtado, Kenneth L. Milsted, George G. Gruse, Edgar Downs, Christopher T. Lehman, Richard L. Spagna, Jeffrey B. Lotspiech
  • Patent number: 6597891
    Abstract: A method for receiving digital content data on a user's system for playing or recording, the content data being compressed and encrypted with a first encrypting key, said method comprising the steps of: tuning a receiver to a selected frequency; receiving content data through a broadcast transmission at the selected frequency; assembling the content data that is received; and transferring the content data to a player for playing the content data after all the content data has been received. In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, an information processing system and computer readable medium is disclosed for carrying out the above method.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 16, 1999
    Date of Patent: July 22, 2003
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Ahmed Tantawy, Franco Marconcini, Jonathan P. Munson, Giovanni Pacifici, Aba S. Youssef
  • Patent number: 6587131
    Abstract: A system and method for assisting the user to operate a pointer so as to move the pointer onto a desired object by the pointing device. A pointer movement direction in which the user wants to move the pointer is detected in accordance with a movement of the pointer by the pointing device (Step S2). Candidate objects located within a predetermined range of the pointer movement direction are displayed (Step S3). The object is selected from the displayed candidate objects (Step S4). The pointer is moved onto the selected object (Step S5).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 5, 2000
    Date of Patent: July 1, 2003
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Haruhiko Nakai, Yohsuke Kinoe
  • Patent number: 6587837
    Abstract: A method for permitting the electronic delivery of digital content. Metadata is acquired which has been previously associated with content. Promotional metadata is extracted for use with a electronic store. At least one of the metadata is altered to create offer data. And at least one of the metadata is altered to create transaction data. In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a computer readable medium is described to carry out the above method.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 1, 1998
    Date of Patent: July 1, 2003
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Richard Spagna, Kenneth Louis Milsted, David P. Lybrand, Edgar Downs
  • Patent number: 6574609
    Abstract: A method of managing content data and associated metadata. According to the method, the content data and the associated metadata are generated. The content data is transferred to a content host, and the metadata and usage condition data for the associated content are transferred to an electronic store. The metadata and/or the usage condition data are altered in order to form promotional data, and the promotional data is transferred from the electronic store to a customer's system. In one preferred method, the content data is encrypted with a first encrypting key before being transferred to the content host. The first encrypting key is encrypted with a second encrypting key, and the encrypted first encrypting key is transferred along with the metadata and usage condition data to the electronic store. Additionally, the encrypted first encrypting key is transferred along with the promotional data to the customer's system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 14, 1998
    Date of Patent: June 3, 2003
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Edgar Downs, George Gregory Gruse, Marco M. Hurtado, Cesar Medina, Kenneth Louis Milsted
  • Patent number: 6542888
    Abstract: A system for collecting and categorizing metadata about content provided via the internet or intranet, regardless of the language of generation of the content. The content of each document is assigned token IDs, which token IDs are the same for any given topic irrespective of the language in which the document is written. Filtering of single language documents will generate a single output; whereas, multilingual documents will be divided into language segments with each segment being filtered by the appropriate language filter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 26, 1997
    Date of Patent: April 1, 2003
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Joaquin M. Marques
  • Patent number: 6539093
    Abstract: Users and security aware applications are able to request operations on and manipulate role based digital certificates (and their corresponding private keys) distributed among multiple key rings through the use of a Key Ring Organizer (KRO). In a typical use of the KRO, the computer network is coupled to a secure server and at least one end-user terminal; a Registration Authority; and an organization server hosting secure applications. The end-user terminal includes a general purpose Web browser with a KRO plug-in module and a KRO managing a set of key rings, where each key ring may contain multiple keys. The KRO components include the KRO, a set of KRO catalogs (typically one), a built-in key ring, and multiple external key rings. A key ring can be of any type, including a smart card, key disk, or remote file. A catalog (typically a file) contains a set of entries in which each entry contains a set of attributes and a reference to a key record stored in a key ring.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 1998
    Date of Patent: March 25, 2003
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Khalid Asad, Michael A. Brown, Adarsh Gupta, Manjit Singh Kohli, J. Matthew Sebastian
  • Patent number: 6532499
    Abstract: A method for switching among a plurality of key functions allocated to a special key, whereby the occurrence of a phenomenon that is contrary to a user's intent can be prevented. When a key event detector 14 detects the depression of a special key, it sets a register 18 by which a request is asserted to output a make scan code that is supposed to be output when the special key is independently depressed and that is originally allocated for the special key. A key event analyzer 15 and a code generator 16 output a scan code to carry out a predetermined key function in response to the depression of a key. But if the register 18 is set when the special key is released, the key event analyzer 15 and the code generator 16 output the above described make scan code.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2000
    Date of Patent: March 11, 2003
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Tetsuji Nakamura
  • Patent number: 6513124
    Abstract: The number of executed instructions (Iu) in a user mode as one of performance indexes of a computer, and the total number of executed instructions (It) as one of power consumption indexes are used. These parameters have a relationship of E−It/Iu with energy index E. An operating speed (operating frequency) of CPU is increased or decreased so that a value of the performance index may be increased within a range of the power consumption index specified by a user, or a value of the energy index E may be decreased. By doing so, power management processing may be performed, which balances the power saving with the performance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 14, 1999
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2003
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Sanehiro Furuichi, Toru Aihara, Susumu Shimotono