Patents Represented by Attorney J. Nicholas Gross
  • Patent number: 8306478
    Abstract: A remote monitoring device is integrated as part of a cell phone or personal digital assistant. By sharing computing resources of a communications transceiver, the cost of a monitoring device can be significantly reduced, while still permitting sufficient functionality to effectively observe an area of interest, such as a child's sleeping area. An alert is generated and transmitted to an observer using a separate transceiver when activity at the monitored area (i.e., sound or video activity) meets a specified threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2011
    Date of Patent: November 6, 2012
    Inventor: John Nicholas Gross
  • Patent number: 8193078
    Abstract: A method of growing an epitaxial film and transferring it to an assembly substrate is disclosed. The film growth and transfer are made using an epitaxy lateral overgrowth technique. The formed epitaxial film on an assembly substrate can be further processed to form devices such as solar cell, light emitting diode, and other devices and assembled into higher integration of desired applications.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 28, 2009
    Date of Patent: June 5, 2012
    Assignee: Athenaeum, LLC
    Inventor: Eric Ting-Shan Pan
  • Patent number: 8171679
    Abstract: An unitized curtain wall unit houses energy conversion devices (such as photovoltaic modules), and includes integrated wiring conduits for routing signal and power cables within a building façade or exterior shell structures.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 22, 2009
    Date of Patent: May 8, 2012
    Assignee: Architectural Glass and Aluminum Corporation, Inc.
    Inventors: Joe Brescia, Mark Tofflemire
  • Patent number: 8171680
    Abstract: A power generating system is manufactured, integrated and operated within an exterior shell or façade of a building structure. The system components—energy generating devices (which can be photovoltaic), control units and associated power/signal wiring are incorporated and operated within individual unitized curtain wall units making up the façade including both in vision and spandrel areas.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 2010
    Date of Patent: May 8, 2012
    Assignee: Architectural Glass and Aluminum Corporation, Inc.
    Inventor: Joe Brescia
  • Patent number: 8117113
    Abstract: Various methods and systems for auctioning items such as golf tee times, restaurant reservations, concert tickets or hotel reservations are disclosed. Users can effectively bid on a large number of items but receive at most one item at the end of the auction. This has the favorable effects for the users of: (1) increasing the probability of successfully bidding for at least one item; (2) making the auction process more convenient by greatly reducing the need for actively monitoring the auction; and, (3) decreasing the possibility a user will be out bid at the last moment and receive no item. This also has the favorable effects for the seller of increasing the probability their listed items will sell and increasing the expected average sales price.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 13, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2012
    Assignee: John Nicholas and Kristin Gross Trust
    Inventor: Terry Erisman
  • Patent number: 8050632
    Abstract: A remote monitoring device is integrated as part of a cell phone or personal digital assistant. By sharing computing resources of a communications transceiver, the cost of a monitoring device can be significantly reduced, while still permitting sufficient functionality to effectively observe an area of interest, such as a child's sleeping area. An alert is generated and transmitted to an observer using a separate transceiver when activity at the monitored area (i.e., sound or video activity) meets a specified threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 25, 2010
    Date of Patent: November 1, 2011
    Assignee: John Nicholas and Kristin Gross
    Inventor: John Nicholas Gross
  • Patent number: 8050631
    Abstract: A remote monitoring device is integrated as part of a cell phone or personal digital assistant. By sharing computing resources of a communications transceiver, the cost of a monitoring device can be significantly reduced, while still permitting sufficient functionality to effectively observe an area of interest, such as a child's sleeping area. An alert is generated and transmitted to an observer using a separate transceiver when activity at the monitored area (i.e., sound or video activity) meets a specified threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 25, 2010
    Date of Patent: November 1, 2011
    Assignee: John Nicholas and Kristin Gross
    Inventor: John Nicholas Gross
  • Patent number: 8001052
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method for tracking of digital assets within a system through the use of digital serial numbers. Systems equipped with the present invention can uniquely identify copies of assets within it. Assets that originate within the system can be uniquely identified even outside the system. Their transaction history within the system can be traced by looking up the transaction history associated with an assets' serial number. The serial number applied to an asset is unique to each transaction and applied at the time a copy is made. Database entries are created that link each unique serial number to aspects of the transaction. Each serial number references details about a particular transaction such as parties involved, date and time of copy, ownership, terms of use, and payment terms.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2001
    Date of Patent: August 16, 2011
    Inventors: Bryan C. Dunkeld, Edward M. Lambert
  • Patent number: 7996456
    Abstract: A document management system monitors proposed recipients for documents and provides recommendations on alterations to the distribution set, such as by adding or removing recipients.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 17, 2007
    Date of Patent: August 9, 2011
    Assignee: John Nicholas and Kristin Gross Trust
    Inventor: John Nicholas Gross
  • Patent number: 7920426
    Abstract: A programmable non-volatile device is made which uses a floating gate that functions as a FET gate that overlaps a portion of a source/drain region. This allows a programming voltage for the device to be imparted to the floating gate through capacitive coupling, thus changing the state of the device. The invention can be used in environments such as data encryption, reference trimming, manufacturing ID, security ID, and many other applications.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 26, 2010
    Date of Patent: April 5, 2011
    Assignee: Jonker LLC
    Inventor: David Liu
  • Patent number: 7905197
    Abstract: An apparatus for growing an epitaxial film and transferring it to an assembly substrate is disclosed. The film growth and transfer are made using an epitaxy lateral overgrowth technique. The formed epitaxial film on an assembly substrate can be further processed to form devices such as solar cell, light emitting diode, and other devices and assembled into higher integration of desired applications.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 28, 2009
    Date of Patent: March 15, 2011
    Assignee: Athenaeum, LLC
    Inventor: Eric Ting-Shan Pan
  • Patent number: 7856445
    Abstract: A system and method is disclosed for presenting relevant advertising to user search queries. The RSS content is processed as part of a search query. The results of the query are further selectively processed to identify concepts/topics therein. The resulting web page topics/concepts can then be mapped to advertisements (or keywords) based on correlating topics/concepts which are in common. Thus the ads can be selected by reference to an underlying content presented in RSS feeds.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2006
    Date of Patent: December 21, 2010
    Assignee: John Nicholas and Kristin Gross
    Inventor: John Nicholas Gross
  • Patent number: 7845127
    Abstract: A power generating system is integrated within an exterior shell or facade of a building structure. The system components—energy generating devices (which can be photovoltaic), control units and associated power/signal wiring are incorporated and operated within individual unitized curtain wall units making up the facade including both in vision and spandrel areas.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 22, 2009
    Date of Patent: December 7, 2010
    Assignee: Architectural Glass and Aluminum Corporation, Inc.
    Inventor: Joe Brescia
  • Patent number: 7782668
    Abstract: A programmable non-volatile device uses a floating gate that functions as a FET gate that overlaps a portion of a source/drain region. This allows a programming voltage for the device to be imparted to the floating gate through capacitive coupling, thus changing the state of the device. The invention can be used in environments such as data encryption, reference trimming, manufacturing ID, security ID, and many other applications.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 3, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 24, 2010
    Assignee: Jonker LLC
    Inventor: David Liu
  • Patent number: 7555431
    Abstract: Speech data is processed with one or more dynamic grammars, to reduce latency and improve accuracy. Different speech grammars are used by a speech recognition process depending on a context experienced by a speaker, and sentence grammars are similarly varied during a natural language process. The methods are useful for distributed speech recognition systems such as a client-server system, typically implemented on an intranet or over the Internet based on user queries at his/her computer, a PDA, or a workstation using a speech input interface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 2004
    Date of Patent: June 30, 2009
    Assignee: Phoenix Solutions, Inc.
    Inventor: Ian M. Bennett
  • Patent number: 7424674
    Abstract: A word processing tool is disclosed for checking the substance and not merely the spelling of words provided by a user. The word checker is capable of identifying potentially inappropriate word choices so that unintentional errors are not introduced into electronic text documents. The word checker can be implemented as a stand-alone procedure, or integrated into a conventional spell-checking program.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 16, 2004
    Date of Patent: September 9, 2008
    Inventors: John N. Gross, Anthony A. Gross
  • Patent number: 7392185
    Abstract: An intelligent query system for processing voiced-based queries is disclosed, which uses a combination of both statistical and semantic based processing to identify the question posed by the user by understanding the meaning of the user's utterance. Based on identifying the meaning of the utterance, the system selects a single answer that best matches the user's query. The answer that is paired to this single question is then retrieved and presented to the user. The system, as implemented, accepts environmental variables selected by the user and is scalable to provide answers to a variety and quantity of user-initiated queries.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 25, 2003
    Date of Patent: June 24, 2008
    Assignee: Phoenix Solutions, Inc.
    Inventor: Ian M. Bennett
  • Patent number: 7389243
    Abstract: A notification system method is disclosed for alerting subscribers to a status of their rental queues. The system includes a number of components that interoperate to improve a subscriber's experience, including an intelligent queue monitor which works on his/her behalf to ensure that an adequate and interesting list of titles are brought to the attention of subscribers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 2, 2004
    Date of Patent: June 17, 2008
    Inventor: John N. Gross
  • Patent number: 7376556
    Abstract: Speech signal information is formatted, processed and transported in accordance with a format adapted for TCP/IP protocols used on the Internet and other communications networks. NULL characters are used for indicating the end of a voice segment. The method is useful for distributed speech recognition systems such as a client-server system, typically implemented on an intranet or over the Internet based on user queries at his/her computer, a PDA, or a workstation using a speech input interface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 2004
    Date of Patent: May 20, 2008
    Assignee: Phoenix Solutions, Inc.
    Inventor: Ian M. Bennett
  • Patent number: 7339819
    Abstract: A nonvolatile hybrid memory cell is provided. The cell is comprised of a magnetic spin storage element and one or two semiconductor FET isolation elements. The magnetic spin storage element is an electron spin-based memory element situated on a silicon based substrate and includes a first ferromagnetic layer with a changeable magnetization state, and a second ferromagnetic layer with a non-changeable magnetization state. A current of spin polarized electrons has a magnitude which can be varied so that a data value can be stored in the memory element by varying a relative orientation of the two ferromagnetic layer. An output of the device is coupled to a conventional CMOS amplifier to determine such relationship.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 7, 2007
    Date of Patent: March 4, 2008
    Assignee: Seagate Technology LLC
    Inventor: Mark B. Johnson