Patents Examined by A. Pulliam
  • Patent number: 8874533
    Abstract: A method is provided of validating details associated with a copyrighted work. The work and associated data are received at a first server from a first party and stored in an online database. The work and the data are further associated with the first party and one or more other parties. The data includes a relationship status between the parties and the work, and details associated with the work. The online database is reviewed for preexisting confirmation of the relationships. Where the relationships are unconfirmed, confirmation requests are transmitted to the one or more other parties via the communications network seeking confirmation of the relationships. Upon confirming said relationships, the other parties are contacted seeking validation or correction of the details provided by the first party. Validated details or corrected details are then received from one or more of the other parties and stored on the online database.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 22, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 28, 2014
    Assignee: MyWerx, LLC
    Inventor: Timothy R. Smith
  • Patent number: 8868544
    Abstract: A method and mechanism for performing an operation based on multidimensional data in a relational database. A first query is submitted to a relational database engine of the relational database management system, thereby causing a relational cube to be generated. The first query includes instructions to select a portion of multidimensional data for inclusion in the relational cube. The first query includes instructions to group the selected portion of multidimensional data using at least two or more levels of granularity of at least one dimension. The first query also includes instructions to generate a materialized view. Based on a received request for an operation, a second query is submitted to the relational database engine for execution against the relational cube, thereby causing the operation to be performed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 25, 2003
    Date of Patent: October 21, 2014
    Assignee: Oracle International Corporation
    Inventors: Andrew Witkowski, Gregory Dorman, David Greenfield
  • Patent number: 8868563
    Abstract: A system, method, and computer program product are provided for analyzing a plurality of rules in a textual rules structure. Further, the plurality of rules are decomposed into a plurality of contexts, based on the analysis. In addition, the plurality of contexts are stored in a table. Furthermore, a database associated with a device and/or any robot equipped with an operating system may be utilized.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 9, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 21, 2014
    Assignee: Amdocs Software Systems Limited
    Inventor: Adi Kariv
  • Patent number: 8862619
    Abstract: A system, method, and computer program product are provided for storing a data stream in a first table of a database. Further, a plurality of contexts associated with the data stream are identified. Additionally, the data stream is filtered, utilizing plurality of contexts. Furthermore, the database may be associated with a device and/or any robot equipped with an operating system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 7, 2008
    Date of Patent: October 14, 2014
    Assignee: Amdocs Software Systems Limited
    Inventor: Adi Kariv
  • Patent number: 8856087
    Abstract: A data processing system accesses a group of events to identify a group of types of events and aggregates at least some of the events into a group of items. Each of the events is aggregated by binding another event to an event identified as a particular type of event based on a correspondence between the event and the particular type of event and binding additional information to the event identified as the particular type of event based on a relationship between the additional information and the particular type of event. The data processing system also rendezvous one of the items with an event.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2002
    Date of Patent: October 7, 2014
    Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Inc.
    Inventors: William S. Greene, Matthew C. Pierret
  • Patent number: 8838605
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus for a new approach to the problem of finding communities in complex networks relating to a social definition of communities and percolation are disclosed. Instead of partitioning the graph into separate subgraphs from top to bottom a local algorithm (communities of each vertex) allows overlapping of communities. The performance of an algorithm on synthetic, randomly-generated graphs and real-world networks is used to benchmark this method against others. An heuristic is provided to generate a list of communities for networks using a local community finding algorithm. Unlike diffusion based algorithms, The provided algorithm finds overlapping communities and provides a means to measure confidence in community structure. It features locality and low complexity for exploring the communities for a subset of network nodes, without the need for exploring the whole graph.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 25, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 16, 2014
    Assignee: Netseer, Inc.
    Inventors: Alice Hwei-Yuan Meng Muntz, Behnam Attaran Rezaei
  • Patent number: 8838578
    Abstract: A computer system affords a user the ability to interactively formulate, visualize, and modify query plans that are to be posed to a database. The computer system provides query visualization in the form of decision trees having nodes selectable/deselectable to search for alternative query plans with lower or minimum execution time. The estimated cost and/or the execution time of a subtree of a query plan may be mapped according to a rectangle area metaphore, with the area of a rectangle enclosed by a larger rectangle representing a parent node in the plan tree. Query plans may be saved by the system in order to facilitate their visualization, optimization, and/or modification at a later date.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 12, 2011
    Date of Patent: September 16, 2014
    Assignee: SAP SE
    Inventors: Yongsik Yoon, Chanho Jeong, Sang Kyun Cha
  • Patent number: 8838610
    Abstract: A listing tune-up system is provided. An example listing tune-up system may include a detecting module to detect a listing for an item. The listing may comprise various information including a title, and a category of the item for transaction. The example listing tune-up system may include a determining module to determine a recommended category set for the item using categories of existing listings that match one or more keywords in the title. The example listing tune-up system may include a verifying module to verify whether the category of the item complies with the recommended category set. The example listing tune-up system may further include a generating module to generate a tune-up report for the listing upon completion of the verification. The tune-up report may comprise the recommended category set and/or other editing suggestions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 30, 2009
    Date of Patent: September 16, 2014
    Assignee: eBay Inc.
    Inventor: Jason Adam Swartz
  • Patent number: 8825654
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus for a new approach to the problem of finding communities in complex networks relating to a social definition of communities and percolation are disclosed. Instead of partitioning the graph into separate subgraphs from top to bottom a local algorithm (communities of each vertex) allows overlapping of communities. The performance of an algorithm on synthetic, randomly-generated graphs and real-world networks is used to benchmark this method against others. An heuristic is provided to generate a list of communities for networks using a local community finding algorithm. Unlike diffusion based algorithms, The provided algorithm finds overlapping communities and provides a means to measure confidence in community structure. It features locality and low complexity for exploring the communities for a subset of network nodes, without the need for exploring the whole graph.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 25, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 2, 2014
    Assignee: Netseer, Inc.
    Inventors: Alice Hwei-Yuan Meng Muntz, Behnam Attaran Rezaei
  • Patent number: 8812532
    Abstract: Systems and methods of tracking and rewarding users of search engines, content networks, communication networks, other networks and/or combinations of networks are described. In many embodiments, users create accounts and control when and the type of information that is tracked. The tracked information can be used to provide rewards, customize offers and rewards and to improve services provided to the user. One embodiment includes receiving secure identification information from the user, retrieving user account information using the secure identification information, receiving a search query from the user, crediting the user account with a reward that is directly related to providing the search query, and returning search results.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 7, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 19, 2014
    Inventor: Mazen A. Skaf
  • Patent number: 8799211
    Abstract: Various methods and systems for performing cascaded replication are disclosed. For example, one method involves receiving an acknowledgment at a primary replication site from an intermediate replication site. The acknowledgment identifies whether a change has been applied to a remote replication site. The method also involves updating a journal, in response to the acknowledgment. The journal identifies whether the change is currently being replicated. The method can also involve detecting that the intermediate replication site is inaccessible. In response, the method synchronizes a copy of application data at the remote replication site by applying one or more changes identified in the journal to the copy of the application data at the remote replication site.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 6, 2005
    Date of Patent: August 5, 2014
    Assignee: Symantec Operating Corporation
    Inventors: Angshuman Bezbaruah, Anand A. Kekre, Ankur P. Panchbudhe
  • Patent number: 8788530
    Abstract: A distributed file system and method distributes file system objects across multiple self-contained volumes, where each volume is owned by a unique file system node. Logical links are used to reference a file system object between volumes. Each file system node includes a relocation directory in which is maintained hard links to locally-stored file system objects that are referenced from another file system node using logical links. Various file system operations that involve multiple volumes are performed without having to place a write lock on more than one volume at a time. Various caching schemes allow the various file system nodes to cache file system object data and metadata.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 14, 2011
    Date of Patent: July 22, 2014
    Assignee: Hitachi Data Systems Engineering UK Limited
    Inventors: Francesco Lacapra, Fiorenzo Cattaneo, Simon L. Benham, Trevor E. Willis, Christopher J. Aston
  • Patent number: 8768905
    Abstract: An indication of refusal of a lock request is received with a first operation identifier for a resource that is already locked with a lock associated with a second operation identifier from an agent that controls the resource, wherein the agent returns a value that determines how long the lock request is to stay on the queue. The lock request is placed in a queue with a lock queue timeout period based on the value from the agent. The lock request is reissued if the lock associated with the second operation identifier has been released and the lock request reaches a position of the queue from which the lock request is processed within the lock queue timeout period. The lock request is re-queued if the reissued lock request is not granted based on how many times the lock request has been previously placed in the queue.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 12, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 1, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Michael Leo Walker
  • Patent number: 8751467
    Abstract: A method, device, and system are provided for accessing metadata in a data storage system. More specifically, a requesting application requests a cache application to allocate a cache page to retrieve metadata from a storage device. After metadata is written to the cache page, the cache page is locked by the requesting application. The cache page is maintained in a locked state by the requesting application. This allows the data stored within the cache page to be quickly accessed and updated by the requesting application without waiting for the cache page to be written back to the storage device after every update to the cache page occurs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 18, 2007
    Date of Patent: June 10, 2014
    Assignee: Dot Hill Systems Corporation
    Inventor: Kent Lee
  • Patent number: 8745097
    Abstract: Techniques and tools are described for converting XML documents and XML schema documents to OWL. An OWL model ontology can be generated by receiving XML schema documents, performing schema consolidation, and generating the OWL model ontology from the consolidated XML schema. An OWL instance ontology can be generated by receiving XML documents and XML schema documents and generating an OWL instance ontology from the XML documents and the XML schema documents. OWL model extraction and OWL instance generation can be performed in parallel and without the need for intermediate XSLT documents. Schema consolidation can comprise collecting schema documents, merging schema documents, and reorganizing the merged schema document to create a consolidated schema document.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 7, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 3, 2014
    Assignee: Infosys Limited
    Inventors: Kiran Prakash Sawant, Suman Roy
  • Patent number: 8738588
    Abstract: Sequential media reclamation is usually performed after portions of a sequential access volume's data are no longer needed and the unused portion of the volume exceeds a threshold. Improved sequential media reclamation is provided by using a sequential access disk volume (for example, a volume of a virtual tape library (VTL)) embodied as a sparse file. Reclamation of objects stored in the volume is accomplished by nulling out regions of the sparse file that contain the objects that are no longer needed. A replication method is also provided in which information about the objects stored in the sparse file (such as offset and length) is used during replication to enable the correct portions of a target volume (embodied as a sparse file) to be nulled out to match a source volume (also embodied as a sparse file).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 26, 2007
    Date of Patent: May 27, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: David Maxwell Cannon, Michael Allen Kaczmarski
  • Patent number: 8706688
    Abstract: A computer-implemented data processing system and method for storing a data set at a plurality of data centers. The data centers and hosts within the data centers may, for example, be organized according to a multi-tiered ring arrangement. A hashing arrangement may be used to implement the ring arrangement to select the data centers and hosts where the writing and reading of the data sets occurs, version histories may also be written and read at the hosts and may be used to evaluate causal relationships between the data sets after the reading occurs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 11, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 22, 2014
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Peter S. Vosshall, Swaminathan Sivasubramanian, Giuseppe deCandia, Deniz Hastorun, Avinash Lakshman, Alex Pilchin, Ivan D. Rosero
  • Patent number: 8694473
    Abstract: A system and method are disclosed for rendering published documents tamper evident. Embodiments render classes of documents tamper evident with cryptographic level security or detect tampering, where such security was previously unavailable, for example, documents printed using common printers without special paper or ink. Embodiments enable proving the date of document content without the need for expensive third party archival, including documents held, since their creation, entirely in secrecy or in untrustworthy environments, such as on easily-altered, publicly-accessible internet sites. Embodiments can extend, by many years, the useful life of currently-trusted integrity verification algorithms, such as hash functions, even when applied to binary executable files. Embodiments can efficiently identify whether multiple document versions are substantially similar, even if they are not identical, thus potentially reducing storage space requirements.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 29, 2012
    Date of Patent: April 8, 2014
    Inventor: Kelce S Wilson
  • Patent number: 8688682
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer program products are provided for query expression evaluation for query optimization. Embodiments include receiving a query including a plurality of predicates; creating a truth table representing the possible solutions to the query; identifying a plurality of intersections of the truth table, the plurality of intersections including each predicate of the query; assigning a selectivity factor to each predicate; determining in dependence upon the selectivity factors for each predicate a selectivity rating for each of the intersections of the truth table; selecting one or more of the intersections in dependence upon the selectivity rating; and determining in dependence upon the selected intersections a percentage of rows in a database table returned by the query; and providing the percentage of rows in the database table to an access plan generator for query optimization.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2007
    Date of Patent: April 1, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Michael S. Faunce, Yasunobu Suginaka
  • Patent number: 8688675
    Abstract: A video retrieval system is proposed that retrieves trajectory data from a database as a response to a search query. The search query is formulated on the basis of a search trajectory, which is represented as a plurality of search segments. Minimum hounding areas are generated, whereby the plurality of the minimum hounding areas cover the search trajectory or at least one of the search segments. The video retrieval system accesses the database by using at least one of the minimum bounding areas as a query area, whereby the minimum bounding areas of the plurality of bounding areas are arranged overlap-free and/or adjacently or with a search trajectory independent overlap.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2006
    Date of Patent: April 1, 2014
    Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
    Inventors: Rob Albers, Egbert Jaspers, Rob Wijnhoven