Patents Assigned to DROPBOX, INC.
  • Patent number: 9479578
    Abstract: A content management system synchronizes content items across client computing systems connected by a network. Client devices connected to peer devices on a LAN utilize peer-to-peer synchronization to synchronize content items. Client devices on the LAN broadcast namespaces synchronized on the client devices with other devices on the LAN. Client devices on the LAN connect to a subset of client devices that share a namespace with the connecting client device based on the broadcasts. Upon receiving a notification from the content management system that a new content item has been synchronized with the namespace a client device sends requests for a block comprising a content item to a subset of the connected devices. Additional block requests are sent in the order of randomized blocklist.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2016
    Assignee: DROPBOX, INC.
    Inventor: Eric Swanson
  • Patent number: 9479567
    Abstract: A synchronization protocol for multi-premises hosting of digital content items. In one embodiments, for example, a method, comprising: detecting creation or modification of a content item; determining a content item namespace to which the content item belongs; obtaining an identifier of a block server to which the content item namespace is assigned; and uploading any content item blocks of the content item to the block server that are not already stored at the block server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventors: Nipunn Koorapati, Christopher Rude, Marcio von Muhlen, Nils Bunger
  • Patent number: 9466056
    Abstract: Various embodiments of the present technology involve the delivery of digital content via a synchronized content management system (CMS) in return for a payment. For example, a first user could send a share link containing a content item to a second user. Upon attempting to open the content item, the second user could be prompted to input payment information. In response to providing the payment information, the second user could select the share link enabling the second user to download the content item.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 15, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 11, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventors: John Adams, Aditi Jain, Matteus Pan
  • Patent number: 9465653
    Abstract: A computing system can provide user interfaces and back-end operations to facilitate review and invalidation of executed jobs. The system can provide an interface that allows the operator to review quality-control information about a completed job. Once the operator identifies a job as invalid, the operator can be presented with further options, such as whether to invalidate only the reviewed job or the job and all its descendants. The operator can also review antecedent jobs to an invalid job (e.g., in order to trace the root of the problem) and can selectively invalidate antecedent jobs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 11, 2013
    Date of Patent: October 11, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventors: Shaunak Kishore, Karl Dray
  • Patent number: 9465877
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for implementing globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) in a multi-user network-based content management environment, from the perspective of a server creating a GUID for a content item, and serving requests based on the GUID. A content management system can identify a content item at a location within the data storage. Each user of the content management system can be associated with a respective user account having an amount of storage space within the storage environment. The content management system can model a user account as a collection of content item objects and globally unique identifiers that are independent of a directory-based hierarchy of content items.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 28, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 11, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventor: Rian Hunter
  • Patent number: 9465930
    Abstract: User authentication for a user device can leverage one or more fingerprint sensor regions installed in the device capable of detecting and/or recognizing a user's fingerprints. The user can define a fingerprint gesture or sequence of fingerprint gestures as a passcode, with access to a protected function being conditional on the user performing the defined fingerprint gesture or sequence of fingerprint gestures. In some instances, different fingerprint gestures or fingerprint gesture sequences can invoke or authorize different functions of the device. In some instances, fingerprint gestures from two or more users in the same location or in different locations can be used to unlock a protected function of a device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 29, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 11, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventor: Brett Alten
  • Patent number: 9461949
    Abstract: A sharer account of a content management system may share a link to a non-synchronized (i.e., read-only) version of a content item, with a recipient that already has access to a synchronized (i.e., read-write) version of the content item. This can possibly be due to the sharer forgetting that the recipient already has access to the synchronized version, the sharer finding it more convenient to share the link, and/or due to various other reasons. The present disclosure can determine that the recipient, with whom the link is shared, already has access to the synchronized version of the shared content item. The recipient can be notified that he already has access to the synchronized version and can be provided with an option to access the synchronized version (which can be stored locally at the recipient's device and/or stored online at the recipient's account with the content management system).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 4, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventor: Anthony Grue
  • Patent number: 9460210
    Abstract: A content management system enriches contact records obtained from a client device using user records stored on the content management system. The content management system receives contact records from a client device authorized on a user account of the content management system. The content management system compares contact records with user profiles stored on the content management system. The content management system matches contact records with user profiles of user accounts with which at least one sharing event occurred between the user account and the user account on which the client device is authorized. The content management system identifies a matching user profile corresponding to the contact record. The content management system determines modification information for modifying the contact record based upon the matching user profile.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 4, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 4, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventors: Michael Dwan, Alon Levi
  • Patent number: 9462054
    Abstract: Providing a user with an interactive user interface that may fully enable interactions regardless of connectivity status may be provided. In some embodiments, one or more content items may be selected by a user of the user devices and may be queued for upload to a content management system. The content items may be organized into one or more collections of content items with other content items already stored in a user account on the content management system, such as images having similar geo-temporal characteristics. A set of interactivity features may be available to the user for interacting with the queued content item. This may provide the user with the seamless feeling as if the content items have been uploaded to the content management system and the user may be interacting with the content items on the content management system, even if the upload has not been completed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 8, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 4, 2016
    Assignee: DROPBOX, INC.
    Inventors: Stephen Poletto, Peter Belknap, Thomas Kleinpeter
  • Patent number: 9451022
    Abstract: A client device can implement a client-side application for a server-side online content management system. The client-side application can communicate with the server-side online content management system to sync data stored locally on the client-side with data stored on the server-side. A local web server can be implemented on the client device to work in conjunction with the client-side application, such that the local web server can access the data stored locally. The client device can run a web browser that communicates with the local web server. A user of the client device can use the web browser to connect to the local web server to access the synced data stored locally on the client-side. Advantages of accessing the data stored locally using the web browser via the local web server include performance improvements, offline access to the data, and use of native client applications to interact with the data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 16, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 20, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventors: Ziga Mahkovec, Rajeev Nayak
  • Patent number: 9450904
    Abstract: A server system can provide coordinated event-based notifications to a target user across multiple notification channels. The selection of channels for a particular notification can be based on the type of event underlying the notification, user preferences related to delivery of notifications, and the like. The sending of notifications in different channels can be coordinated so that notifications in different channels are sent at different times, and sending of any given notification can be made to depend on whether the notification (or the underlying event) has already been acted on, as well as on user preferences related to delivery of notification. Some notifications can be sent without delay and/or unconditionally.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 15, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 20, 2016
    Assignee: DROPBOX, INC.
    Inventors: Daniel Lowe Wheeler, Tina Wen, Aseem Sood
  • Patent number: 9448704
    Abstract: One or more embodiments of a digital content system allow a user to conveniently search and/or navigate through a collection of digital content items. In particular, a user can interact with a client device to search for and identify one or more digital content items within a collection of digital content items. For example, the digital content system may provide a photo from a collection of photos via a graphical user interface. The digital content system can receive a user input identifying a selection of one or more visual features within the photo. Based on the selected visual feature(s), the digital content system may identify photos from the collection of photos that include the identified visual feature(s) and provide access to the identified photos via the graphical user interface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 29, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 20, 2016
    Assignee: DROPBOX, INC.
    Inventors: Peter N. Belhumeur, David J. Kriegman, Thomas Berg
  • Patent number: 9442944
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer readable media for content item purging functionality are provided. A contact item purger, such as may be incorporated within a local client application of a content management system, leverages its knowledge as to which items have been uploaded to the content management system, and how long content items have been stored on the user device, to propose items for local deletion and thus reclaiming storage on the user device. A contact item purger may run on one or more devices of a user associated with an account on a content management system upon various triggering events, and may run with or without user interaction, thus maintaining available user device memory capacity at all times.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 12, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 13, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventors: Michael Dwan, Anthony Grue, Daniel Kluesing
  • Patent number: 9442997
    Abstract: A content management system synchronizes content items across client computing systems connected by a network. Each client device has a storage allocation for synchronized shared content items. If the storage allocation for shared content items on a client device is exceeded by the request to add or edit a content item such that it is enlarged, a client application or the host of content management system selects content items to remove from residence on the client device but keep remotely on content management system. Upon removal of the selected content items, the client application creates shadow items, representing the content item but only containing the metadata of the content item. This creates sufficient space for the initial request to be completed while maintaining user access to all synchronized shared content items. The processes of replacing content items with shadow items may be completed while the client device is idle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 16, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 13, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventor: Benjamin Zeis Newhouse
  • Patent number: 9436769
    Abstract: Various embodiments of the present technology involve the configuration of a wireless-enabled memory card. For example, a client application associated with a content management system (CMS) can obtain a computing device's current wireless configuration information, request a temporary authentication token from the CMS, encode this information in a visual code, and display this visual code on a display screen of the computing device. A user can capture an image of the visual code with a camera, thereby, causing the memory card to extract the wireless configuration information and token from the image, and connect to the specified wireless network. Once connected, the temporary authentication token is exchanged for an access token allowing the memory card to automatically send images captured by the camera to an account with the CMS for storage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 26, 2014
    Date of Patent: September 6, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventor: Scott Bezek
  • Patent number: 9430669
    Abstract: A content management system allows a user to create a collection folder to which a submitting user can add content items without being able to access content items added to the folder by other submitting users. A collection folder is created in a namespace of a collecting user and folder is made available to multiple submitting users to allow the submitting users to add items to the folder. When a submitting user first request to store a content item in the collection folder, the content management system creates a sub-folder associated with the submitting user in the collection folder and stores the content item in the sub-folder. The submitting user is given rights to the sub-folder, but is not given rights to sub-folders created for other submitting users.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 30, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventors: Aaron Staley, Aditi Jain, Aisha Ferrazares, Alicia Chen, Ashish Warty, John Adams, Joseph Hui, Kathryn Siegel, Lennart Jansson, Matteus Pan, Rob Baesman, Siyao Xu
  • Patent number: 9432238
    Abstract: Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for communicating large amounts of data. A system can first receive a request for data and determines if the data requested is above a threshold size. If the data is above the threshold size, the system can then prepare a message containing header information following a standard file transfer protocol. The system can also prepare metadata indicating a storage location and a size of the data requested. The message and the metadata can then be separately communicated to the requester. Upon receiving the metadata, a data stream can initiate the transfer of the data from the storage location to the requester, where the data stream removes unnecessary or redundant header information during the transfer from the storage location.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 30, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventors: Kevin Modzelewski, Akhil Gupta
  • Patent number: 9424328
    Abstract: Techniques for assisting owners to remotely administer their digital content items stored at non-owners' personal computing devices. The techniques involve identifying owned content items from among content items stored in a synchronization replica that is synchronized with synchronization replicas at the non-owners' personal computing devices. The techniques further involve allowing owners to remotely perform certain administrative actions on owned content items. For example, in response to a command initiated at an owner's personal computing device, a network signal or signals can be sent to a synchronization agent installed on the non-owners' personal computing devices to automatically remove all owned content items from the synchronization replicas at the non-owners' personal computing devices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 20, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 23, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventor: Chris Barton
  • Patent number: 9423922
    Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for creating shared virtual spaces (“rooms”). A room may be created when a user first shares images with another user. A user may send a request to a content management system to share one or more images with various contacts. In response, a room is created by the content management system in which a copy of each image is stored. Images added to a room are copied to a separate “rooms” database, and “locked,” being saved in the room for a period of time, which may be indefinitely. Changes made by the user to a room via a user device may be displayed as soon as indicated, without waiting for the information to be sent to a system server or its state to be made consistent with that of the user device. Room activity notifications may be sent to members in various ways.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 8, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 23, 2016
    Assignee: DROPBOX, INC.
    Inventors: Nils Peter Welinder, Thomas Kleinpeter, Thomas Wright, Ramesh Balakrishnan, Tina Wen, Rajeev Nayak
  • Patent number: 9426216
    Abstract: A content item sharing and synchronization system providing team shared folders is described. Users of the system have access to the team shared folder simply by being a member of a team. A team account manager of the team can grant access to the team shared folder simply by inviting selected users to the team. Similarly, the team account manager can revoke access to the team shared folder simply by removing a user from the team. Unlike typical network file server folders, separate access control list management for the team shared folder apart from user team membership management is not needed to grant and revoke access to the team shared folder, thereby reducing administrative steps necessary to effectively manage access to the team shared folder.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 9, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 23, 2016
    Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
    Inventors: Anand Subramani, Mark Delamere, Emil Ibrishimov, Francois Alexander Allain