Patents Represented by Attorney Gordon E. Nelson
  • Patent number: 7028057
    Abstract: Techniques for doing optimistic constraint checking in a versioned relational database system. The techniques find a subset of the versions of a table that contain all of the rows that need be checked for violation of a constraint when a given version is modified. When the versions of a table are organized into a directed acyclic graph (DAG), the subset for a given version is the ancestry of the given version, that is, the given version plus the ancestors of the given version in the DAG. Within the ancestry, the set of rows that must be checked is termed the version view. A row that belongs to the set has a primary key that is the latest version of the primary key in the given version's ancestry. The technique may be used for constraints including the referential integrity constraint and the unique key constraint. The metadata used to compute the version view is disclosed, as well as the manner in which the constraint checking techniques interact with the workspaces that provide access to the versions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 25, 2002
    Date of Patent: April 11, 2006
    Assignee: Oracle International Corporation
    Inventors: Ramesh Vasudevan, Sanjay Agarwal, Ramkrishna Chatterjee, Benjamin Speckhard
  • Patent number: 7003438
    Abstract: Adaptive noise reduction techniques used in devices that pass light from a laser through a quantum medium such as a rubidium vapor cell. A CPT frequency standard that employs the techniques has a first channel in which the laser light passes through the quantum medium and to a photodetector to produce a first signal and a second channel in which the light passes to a second photodetector without passing through the quantum medium to produce a second signal. The first and second signals are processed in a signal processor to produce an enhanced output signal in which the noise has been reduced. The signal processor implements noise predictor and noise remover. In a preferred embodiment, the noise predictor employs a FIR filter in which the coefficients are set in response to feedback from the enhanced output signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 13, 2003
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2006
    Assignee: Kernco, Inc.
    Inventors: Andrew Vernon Dowd, Martin W. Levine
  • Patent number: 6976020
    Abstract: An environment for composing software permits the separation of control functions from information about the context in which the control functions operate. The software composition environment is used to make a system which will translate XML documents into models and vice-versa. The translation system is used to translate an XML document having one DTD into an XML document having another DTD by translating the first XML document into a model representing the semantics of the XML document and translating the model into the second XML document (2005). The system for translating XML documents into models employs a general technique for translating any XML documents into a mirror model (2107) that reflects the structure of the XML document and a general technique of using tag pattern models (2109) to obtain information from one model and using it to make or modify another model.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 26, 2001
    Date of Patent: December 13, 2005
    Assignee: Poppet International, Inc.
    Inventors: Jon S. Anthony, Dean T. Allemang
  • Patent number: 6937127
    Abstract: Techniques for producing and manipulating magnetic fields. The techniques employ the mutual repulsion of magnetic fields to create uniform magnetic fields and to manipulate the uniform magnetic fields. The uniform magnetic field is created between two planar magnets. The planar magnets have cores which describe a closed curve. Like poles of the electromagnets are connected by the cores. When the electromagnets are activated, repulsion between the magnetic fields generated by the electromagnets creates a magnetic field which extends above and below the planes of the planar magnets. If the planar magnets are positioned parallel to each other and aligned so that the magnetic fields generated by the planar magnets repel each other in the space between the planar magnets, the repulsion between the fields generates a resultant field.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 9, 2003
    Date of Patent: August 30, 2005
    Assignee: Oster Magnetics, Inc.
    Inventor: Eugene L. Oster
  • Patent number: 6920619
    Abstract: A digital system that may be used by children two years old and older. The digital system is contained in a child-proof case and has an upward-facing display with a touch-sensitive screen that is within easy reach of a child. Other I/O devices include proximity and motion sensors and a microphone, and there is also a loudspeaker. When a proximity sensor senses someone in the neighborhood of the system, it displays images on the display. A child may manipulate the images by touching them on the touch screen. Manipulations include selecting an image by touching it, “dragging” the selected image by moving the finger touching the image across the screen and “dropping” the image by lifting a finger from it, moving a selected image by touching another location on the screen and thereby causing the selected image to move to the touched location, removing an image from the screen by “throwing” it, i.e.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 12, 1998
    Date of Patent: July 19, 2005
    Inventor: Slavoljub Milekic
  • Patent number: 6847979
    Abstract: Techniques for factoring one or more source graphs into a composite graph containing nodes representing analogous elements of the source graphs and a variability graph containing nodes representing differences in the source graphs. The composite graph is made by taking analogous input trees from the source graphs and traversing the trees from top to bottom looking for nodes in each tree at each level that are analogous to the nodes at that level in the other input trees. The sets of analogous nodes are found by first automatically correlating the nodes in the level currently being examined. Correlation may, for example, be based on similar values of a property of the nodes being correlated. Representations of the sets of correlated nodes are then displayed to a user, who indicates which sets of correlated nodes are in fact analogous.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 23, 2001
    Date of Patent: January 25, 2005
    Assignee: Synquiry Technologies, LTD
    Inventors: Dean T. Allemang, Mark A. Simos
  • Patent number: 6842175
    Abstract: The tools include components which are images produced by the system (103) that creates the virtual environment in response to inputs specifying the tool's location and the point of view of the tool's user. One class of the tools includes transparent components (121, 123); the image component of the tool is produced at a location in the virtual environment determined by the transparent component's location and the point of view of the tool's user. Tools in this class include a transparent pad (121) and a transparent stylus (123). The transparent pad (121) has an image component that may be used as a palette, as a magic lens, and as a device for selecting and transporting components of the virtual environment or even a portion of the virtual environment itself.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 1999
    Date of Patent: January 11, 2005
    Assignee: Fraunhofer USA, Inc.
    Inventors: Dieter Schmalstieg, Oliver Bimber, L. Miguel Encarnacão
  • Patent number: 6805770
    Abstract: Techniques used in systems that employ pairs of coils arranged around an axis to make a magnetic field that rotates around an axis to reduce or eliminate the effects of corners where adjacent ones of the coils meet on the uniformity of the magnetic field. The techniques are particularly useful in plasma reactors that employ magnetically-enhanced reactive ion etching technology. The techniques employ elements that are low cost and may be easily retrofitted to existing plasma reactors. The elements include magnetic shunts that are fitted to the corners of the coils to compensate for the corner effects, trim coils fitted to the corners that, when energized, compensate for the corner effects, and sets of coils that function as 180° coils and thereby reduce the corner effects. The magnetic shunts may be combined with the trim coils.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 30, 2002
    Date of Patent: October 19, 2004
    Assignee: Oster Magnetics, Inc.
    Inventor: Eugene L. Oster
  • Patent number: 6803928
    Abstract: Apparatus that uses a large transflective mirror to extend a virtual reality system such as a virtual table that employs a projection plane to produce the virtual reality. The transflexive mirror is positioned relative to the projection plane such that the plane of the mirror intersects the projection plane and the angle of the mirror relative to the projection plane is such that the user of the system who looks at the mirror sees the projection plane reflected in the mirror. The virtual reality system is responsive to the position of the mirror and the direction in which a user is looking and produces separate virtual realities on the projection plane: one when the user is looking at the mirror and another when the user is looking at the projection plane. The virtual reality that the user sees when looking at the mirror may or may not be coherent with the virtual reality that the user sees when looking at the projection plane.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 17, 2002
    Date of Patent: October 12, 2004
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
    Inventors: Oliver Bimber, L. Miguel Encarnacao, Andre Stork
  • Patent number: 6785728
    Abstract: A scalable access filter that is used together with others like it in a virtual private network to control access by users at clients in the network to information resources provided by servers in the network. Each access filter use a local copy of an access control data base to determine whether an access request made by a user. Changes made by administrators in the local copies are propagated to all of the other local copies. Each user belongs to one or more user groups and each information resource belongs to one or more information sets. Access is permitted or denied according to of access policies which define access in terms of the user groups and information sets. The rights of administrators are similarly determined by administrative policies. Access is further permitted only if the trust levels of a mode of identification of the user and of the path in the network by which the access is made are sufficient for the sensitivity level of the information resource.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2000
    Date of Patent: August 31, 2004
    Inventors: David S. Schneider, Michael B. Ribet, Laurence R. Lipstone, Daniel Jensen
  • Patent number: 6782116
    Abstract: Techniques for improving detection of watermarks in content that has undergone a lossy transformation. One of the techniques is used when the message that is contained in a watermark belonging to a digital representation that is derived from an original watermarked digital representation cannot be decoded. The technique obtains information about the watermark by comparing the watermark vector for the watermark that cannot be decoded with a replica of the watermark vector from the original watermarked digital representation. The replica is made using the message. Depending on the degree of similarity, the watermark's presence and some of its characteristics may be determined. Another technique improves the robustness of watermarks that are used for authentication by employing a short (even single-bit) watermark vector to make the watermark and using the message needed for the authentication to determine where the watermark is located in the digital representation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 4, 2002
    Date of Patent: August 24, 2004
    Assignee: Mediasec Technologies, GmbH
    Inventors: Jian Zhao, Justin Picard, Niels Thorwirth
  • Patent number: 6782394
    Abstract: Techniques used in database systems for dealing with metadata associated with multimedia objects. The database system includes a generic representation for metadata values. The representation includes a stratum specifier that specifies the stratum to which a metadata value applies, an extent specifier that specifies a portion of the stratum to which the metadata value applies, and a metadata item specifier that specifies the metadata value. The generic representation is implemented in an object-oriented relational database system. The generic representation of the metadata for a given multimedia object is contained in the object in the database that represents the multimedia object. Values of the representation may be returned by a query or may be used to select other values to be returned by a query, including the portion of an object associated with a metadata value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 25, 2000
    Date of Patent: August 24, 2004
    Assignee: Oracle International Corporation
    Inventors: Albert B Landeck, Raja Chatterjee
  • Patent number: 6769115
    Abstract: A software development environment that permits early detection of problems that arise in porting a program to a number of different platforms. In the environment, the source code for the program to be ported is compiled together with a set of header files or other database that describes the different platforms. The compiler emits a list of porting problems that the program source code has with respect to the platforms. Also included in the environment are run-time binary code that detects porting problems for the different platforms at run time and a library of run-time routines that deal with particular porting problems. The header files, the run-time binary code for the platform, and the run-time routines are generated by a meta-compiler from a description of the differences between the platforms written in the AdI language. Also generated is platform proof source code which tests whether the description of a platform in the AdI language is correct.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2000
    Date of Patent: July 27, 2004
    Assignee: EMC Corporation
    Inventor: Daniel E. Oldman
  • Patent number: 6766519
    Abstract: A generic interface layer for providing a generic interface to a hardware environment for a program executing on the hardware environment. The generic interface layer, is interrupt-driven. It includes driver code for devices in the hardware environment that is executed in response to software interrupts from the program and interrupt handling code for handling interrupts from the hardware environment. The interrupt handling code responds to an interrupt by calling a callback in the program. The generic interface layer includes a loader for loading the program and a debugger for controlling execution of the program. Execution of code in the generic interface layer may be coordinated by the system timer interrupt code that is executed in response to a system timer interrupt. Code that is executing in the generic interface layer may register itself or other code with the system timer interrupt code, which then executes the code in response to a system timer interrupt.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 26, 1999
    Date of Patent: July 20, 2004
    Assignee: EMC Corporation
    Inventors: Michael Lee Burriss, Stephen Gardner Worth, III, Jerry W. Huff, Paul A. Bong
  • Patent number: 6754822
    Abstract: Techniques for protecting the security of digital representations, and of analog forms made from them are presented. The techniques include authentication techniques that can authenticate both a digital representation and an analog form produced from the digital representation, an active watermark that contains program code that may be executed when the watermark is read, and a watermark agent that reads watermarks and sends messages with information concerning the digital representations that contain the watermarks. The authentication techniques use semantic information to produce authentication information. Both the semantic information and the authentication information survive when an analog form is produced from the digital representation. In one embodiment, the semantic information is alphanumeric characters and the authentication information is either contained in a watermark embedded in the digital representation or expressed as a bar code.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 1998
    Date of Patent: June 22, 2004
    Assignee: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Forderung der angewandten forshung e.v.
    Inventor: Jian Zhao
  • Patent number: 6751336
    Abstract: Techniques for incorporating authentication information into digital representations of objects and using the authentication information to authenticate the objects. The authentication information may be made from information in one portion of the digital representation and incorporated into another portion of the digital representation that does not overlap the first portion. Where the digital representation is made into an analog form and that in turn is made into a digital representation and the second digital representation is verified, the two portions must further be non-overlapping in the analog form. The information from which the authentication information is made may exist at many levels: representations of physical effects produced by the object, representations of features of the object, codes that represent the object's contents, and representations of descriptions of the object. Also disclosed are a verification server and techniques for reducing errors by an OCR.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 1, 2002
    Date of Patent: June 15, 2004
    Assignee: MediaSec Technologies GmbH
    Inventor: Jian Zhao
  • Patent number: 6741997
    Abstract: Techniques used in a distributed database system for simplifying copying of objects from one database system in the distributed database system to another and establishing the infrastructure necessary for the distributed system in the database systems. One application of the techniques is setting up a cache database system that has a subset of the objects in another database system and establishing a link for redirecting misses between the cache and the other database system. Also included is the infrastructure in the cache and the other database system for an authentication proxy that establishes sessions in the other database system for users to perform operations that have been redirected as a result of a miss in the cache. The techniques require only that the user supply simple descriptions of some of the objects to be copied; the techniques locate the necessary dependent objects and make objects for the infrastructure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 14, 2001
    Date of Patent: May 25, 2004
    Assignee: Oracle International Corporation
    Inventors: Jing Liu, Curtis A. Elsbernd, Mahesh Subramaniam
  • Patent number: 6735598
    Abstract: Techniques used in a relational database system for defining subclasses of built-in classes and thereby achieving columns in database tables which contain polymorphic objects of the built-in classes. The methods for the subclasses are contained in named packages. A table in the database system's schema relates the package name to a storage location managed by the relational database system that contains the compiled code for the package. When a method from the package is invoked, a dynamic linker uses the name and the table to locate the compiled code and then executes the compiled code. Users may define their own subclasses by writing a package and then compiling the package using a compiler belonging to the database system. The compiler puts the compiled code in one of the storage locations and modifies the table so that the package name is related to the storage location. The compilation and binding techniques may be used generally to implement plugins in the database system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 29, 1999
    Date of Patent: May 11, 2004
    Assignee: Oracle International Corporation
    Inventor: Alok Srivastava
  • Patent number: 6708186
    Abstract: Techniques for simplifying the aggregation of data stored in a number of objects in a database system. A user-defined type and an object view are associated with a kind of data to be aggregated. The object view specifies the locations of the data in the objects and maps the data to be aggregated into the user-defined type. An application program interface includes a fetch interface that causes the database system to make a query over the object view associated with the kind of data and return the aggregated data in a set of objects of the user-defined type. The returned data is converted to XML and may be further transformed using XSL stylesheets.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2000
    Date of Patent: March 16, 2004
    Assignee: Oracle International Corporation
    Inventors: George H. Claborn, Lee B. Barton
  • Patent number: 6694310
    Abstract: An optimizer for a data transformation system. The optimizer optimizes data flow plans that describe how data is to be transformed from the form it has in a data source to the form required in a data destination. A data flow plan is made up of a sequence of transforms, and the optimized data flow plan is equivalent to the original data flow plan but has fewer transforms. One kind of optimization is read/write optimization, in which the data flow plan is modified so that operations of the original data flow plan are performed in the data source or destination. Another is merge optimization, in which a single merge transform specifies the operations specified in a plurality of the transforms of the original data flow plan. The operations specified in the merge transform can further be performed in parallel. The optimizer additionally reorders the transforms in the original data flow plan to increase the amount of optimization.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 21, 2000
    Date of Patent: February 17, 2004
    Assignee: Oracle International Corporation
    Inventors: Tsae-Feng Yu, Anil D'silva, Jay W. Davison