Patents Examined by A. Williams
  • Patent number: 11979083
    Abstract: A driver circuit includes a drive circuit, a monitoring circuit, and a control circuit. The drive circuit includes a first current source and drives a switching element when the first current source is connected to a control terminal of the switching element. The monitoring circuit monitors a period of time from a start to an end of a change in a voltage drop across the switching element. The control circuit controls a current value of the first current source based on the monitored period of time such that a slew rate of the voltage drop across the switching element approaches a target value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 6, 2022
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignees: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation
    Inventor: Yuji Yamanaka
  • Patent number: 11978600
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a dielectric-insulation or arc-extinction fluid for an apparatus for the generation, the transmission, the distribution and/or the usage of electrical energy, the fluid being a mixture comprising a fluoroolefin and oxygen. According the fluoroolefin is a monohydrofluoroolefin containing from 4 to 5 carbon atoms, the hydrogen atom being bound to a carbon atom of the double bond or directly adjacent to the double bond.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 30, 2020
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: HITACHI ENERGY LTD
    Inventors: Valeria Teppati, Saskia Scheel, Charles Doiron, Daniel Over, Philipp Simka, Branimir Radisavljevic
  • Patent number: 11976240
    Abstract: A method of removing condensate banking in a subsurface formation using a treatment fluid includes injecting a treatment fluid including nanoparticles and a thermochemical component, the thermochemical component including sodium nitrite and ammonium chloride, into a wellbore having condensate banking, thereby exposing the treatment fluid to subsurface formation conditions. The method further includes allowing a temperature of the wellbore to activate the thermochemical component, causing an exothermic reaction generating nitrogen gas, pressure, and heat. The method further includes allowing the treatment fluid and generated nitrogen gas to mix with the condensate banking, thereby forming a homogenous multi-phase foam and lowering hydrostatic pressure in the wellbore. The method further includes allowing the homogenous multi-phase foam to flow back to the surface due to the pressure generated by the exothermic reaction and lowered hydrostatic pressure in the wellbore, thereby removing the condensate banking.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 13, 2022
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: Saudi Arabian Oil Company
    Inventors: Ayman R. Al-Nakhli, Bader Ghazi Alharbi, Mohammed Ali Al Yami
  • Patent number: 11977671
    Abstract: Techniques for implementing an augmented audio conditioning (AAC) system are described herein. In some examples, the AAC system can store conditioning data comprising crowd noise experiences associated with context-relevant environments and/or actions associated with an activity. The AAC system can detect an action of a user who is training in a conditioning environment and determine that the action is associated with the activity. In some examples, the AAC system can also determine an association between the action of the user and audio data representing a crowd noise experience of a context-relevant environment during an event. Furthermore, the AAC system can, in response to detecting the action of the user, output the audio-conditioning data into the conditioning environment to simulate the crowd noise experience of the context-relevant environment during the event.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 20, 2023
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: Moea Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: John Correia
  • Patent number: 11978056
    Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for managing a plurality of supplemental payment sources of a user. One method includes: receiving a primary payment source account of a user for a purchase transaction originating at the merchant, the primary payment source account having an identifier associated with one or more supplemental payment source accounts; receiving supplemental payment source accounts of a user for applying to a payment transaction originating at the merchant; receiving, from a user device, preference settings to apply one or more of the supplemental payment source accounts to a payment transaction; receiving a transaction authorization request from the merchant or merchant acquirer for a transaction amount; and determining a combination of payment source accounts to use in the payment transaction, from a group comprising one or more supplemental payment source accounts and the primary payment source account, and any of one or more preference settings.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 9, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: Worldpay, LLC
    Inventors: Erik Baar, Richard Hill
  • Patent number: 11978480
    Abstract: There is provided an optical disc drive that can maintain contact between an optical disc and a conveying roller, while allowing the number of components to be reduced. A conveying roller includes a right roller that is rotatable around an axis and a left roller that is rotatable around an axis. The right roller portion and the left roller portion are arranged in a lateral direction. One of a right end portion of the right roller portion and a left end portion of the left roller portion is movable in an up-down direction relative to the other of the right end portion of the right roller portion and the left end portion of the left roller portion, with a relative position between the axis and the axis unchanged.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 18, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.
    Inventors: Aki Yoguchi, Keigo Sato
  • Patent number: 11979044
    Abstract: Methods and devices for wired charging and communication with a wearable device are described. In one embodiment, a symmetrical contact interface comprises a first contact pad and a second contact pad, and particular wired circuitry is coupled to the first and second contact pad to enable charging as well as receive and transmit communications via the contact pads as part of various device states.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 15, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: SNAP INC.
    Inventors: Russell Douglas Patton, Jonathan M Rodriguez, II, Stephen Andrew Steger
  • Patent number: 11977594
    Abstract: Described herein are, among other things, techniques, devices, and systems for generating one or more trained machine-learning models. Also described herein are techniques, devices, and systems for applying a consumption history of a particular user to the trained model(s) to generate score data indicating a correlation between each content-item title and the consumption history. The techniques then determine a ranked list of content items having a highest correlation to the consumption history, which may be used to retrieve videos associated with the most-correlated content items for generating a compilation video composed of these retrieved videos.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: VALVE CORPORATION
    Inventors: Adil Sardar, Anthony John Cox, Mark Zbikowski, Christian Carollo, Martin Otten, Taylor Sherman, Alden Kroll, Donald Ichiro Lambe
  • Patent number: 11979688
    Abstract: A liquid crystal on silicon spatial light modulator comprising an array of light-modulating pixels and a controller are disclosed. Each light-modulating pixel of the array comprises liquid crystal and is associated with a respective flip-flop. The controller receives a hologram of an image comprising a plurality of hologram pixels. Each hologram pixel comprises a respective n-bit hologram pixel value. The controller drives each light-modulating pixel in accordance with a respective hologram pixel value of the hologram. There is a one-to-n pixel correlation between the hologram and the light-modulating pixels. The flip-flops of each contiguous group of n light-modulating pixels are connected in series to form a shift register. During operation of the shift register, the n-bit hologram pixel value associated with each contiguous group of n light-modulating pixels is provided to each light-modulating pixel one bit at a time over the course of at least n clock cycles.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 20, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: Dualitas Ltd
    Inventor: Jamieson Christmas
  • Patent number: 11977768
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and devices for write buffer extensions for storage interface controllers are described. Apparatuses and methods are presented in which a buffer may be used to temporarily store data from an application if the memory device is in an INACTIVE power mode. This may allow the memory device to remain asleep. The buffer may be positioned on the host device so that the power mode of the memory device may not affect it. That way, data may be stored in the buffer without waking up the memory device. If the memory device is in an ACTIVE power mode, the data that has been temporarily stored in the buffer may be sent to the memory device for storage. During read operations, if the requested data is stored in the buffer, it may be used instead of data in the memory device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 20, 2022
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Sharath Chandra Ambula, Sushil Kumar, Venkata Kiran Kumar Matturi
  • Patent number: 11975826
    Abstract: A rotor system for an aircraft includes an open rotor assembly comprising an open rotor assembly comprising a plurality of rotor blades connected to a rotor mast, wherein the rotor assembly is tiltable relative to a wing of the aircraft between a first position corresponding to an airplane mode of the aircraft and a second position corresponding to a helicopter mode of the aircraft; and a drive system for providing rotational energy to the open rotor assembly via the rotor mast. The drive system includes at least one electric motor for generating rotational energy to a motor shaft; and a gearbox connected to receive rotational energy from the at least one electric motor via the motor shaft and to provide rotational energy to the rotor mast via a rotor shaft, wherein the at least one electric motor is fixed relative to the wing of the aircraft.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 1, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: Textron Innovations Inc
    Inventors: Jonathan Andrew Knoll, George Matthew Thompson, Charles Hubert Speller, Grant Michael Beall
  • Patent number: 11975819
    Abstract: Technologies are described herein for a drag recovery scheme using a boundary layer bypass duct system. In some examples, boundary layer air is routed around the intake of one or more of the engines and reintroduced aft of the engine fan in the nozzle duct in a mixer-ejector scheme. Mixer-ejectors mix the boundary layer flow to increase mass flow.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 27, 2022
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: JetZero, Inc.
    Inventor: Mark Allan Page
  • Patent number: 11975450
    Abstract: A transfer robot transfers workpieces while sucking upper surfaces of the workpieces. The transfer robot includes a first hand body attached to a first robotic arm, a second hand body attached to a second robotic arm, a first suction part attached to the first hand body, and a second suction part attached to the second hand body. The first suction part has a pair of suction bodies, the pair of suction bodies extending in a horizontal first direction and separated from each other in a horizontal second direction perpendicular to the first direction. The second suction part has at least one suction body extending in the first direction, and the one suction body is changeable in an entering amount into an area between the pair of suction parts of the first suction part according to a relative movement of the second hand body in the first direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 2020
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: KAWASAKI JUKOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Eiji Yoshikuwa, Toshiyuki Tsujimori, Kazunori Hirata, Takeshi Hashimoto
  • Patent number: 11977840
    Abstract: The present invention provides a data transmission device and method thereof. A data transmission system includes: an electric device generating an input message; a Natural Language Processing (NLP) engine connected to the electric device, receiving the input message, and judging whether an output message corresponding to the input message is available on a real-time basis or on a non-real-time basis; a plurality of third-party servers; a service cloud framework connected to one of the NLP engine, the electric device, and the plurality of third-party servers to obtain a real-time information; and a buffer cloud framework connected to one of the NLP engine, the electric device and the plurality of third-party servers, proactively downloading at least one updated data from the plurality of third-party servers once in a predetermined period of time, automatically saving the at least one updated data therein, and obtaining a non-real-time information therefrom.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 3, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: EZ-AI Inc.
    Inventor: Yung Chang Hsu
  • Patent number: 11978202
    Abstract: A system to compare erythemal zones includes a multispectral camera to acquire a multispectral image of each compared zone and a computer processing device to retrieve the images acquired by the multispectral camera. The computer processing device includes a memory, a display, an input device and a microprocessor. The system further includes an image processing program configured to perform spectral de-mixing of the acquired images and isolating the erythemal component of the images, and a program to compare the images based on the intensity of the erythemal components of each image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 19, 2020
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Assignee: PIERRE FABRE DERMO COSMETIQUE
    Inventors: Gwendal Josse, Jimmy Le Digabel
  • Patent number: 11970241
    Abstract: A brake handle structure for a bicycle contains: at least one body, at least one rotatory arm, at least one brake lever, at least one angle signal sensor, and at least one power failure sensor. The at least one body includes a connection portion, an extension, and an engagement portion. The at least one rotatory arm includes a pulling segment, a coupling orifice, and a receiving orifice. The at least one brake lever includes a fixing segment connected with at least one electromagnetic clutch which includes a bolt attracted electromagnetically by the at least one electromagnetic clutch after conducting a power, and a defining orifice is defined adjacent to the at least one electromagnetic clutch. The at least one angle signal sensor is configured to sense and send a rotating angle of the rotatable column. The at least one power failure sensor has a movable sensing head.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 1, 2021
    Date of Patent: April 30, 2024
    Assignee: Joy Industrial (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Chien-Yuan Tsai
  • Patent number: 11970356
    Abstract: Embodiments of spool covers adapted for covering spools of wire mounted on corresponding shafts for preventing tangling of the wire during use, comprising a first cover portion and a second cover portion, each cover portion adapted to engage the shaft adjacent sides of the spool of wire without removing the spool from the shaft, the first and second cover portions being one of rebuildable, comprised of disposable cardboard, and comprised of side walls wherein one of the side walls has attached thereto at least one collett portion adapted for retaining the spool centered within the first and second cover portions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 15, 2022
    Date of Patent: April 30, 2024
    Inventor: Robert Haag
  • Patent number: 11970400
    Abstract: There is described a carbon material comprising sp2 and sp3 hybridised carbon. Also described is a method of making a carbon material the method comprising: exposing a substrate to a flux of at least 1011 carbon ions per cm2 of substrate per 1 ms, a majority of the carbon ions having a kinetic energy of at least 10 eV. Further, electrodes comprising the carbon material are described. The electrodes may operate as an anode in Li ion battery characterised with improved specific capacity and operation life-time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2019
    Date of Patent: April 30, 2024
    Assignee: PLASMA APP LTD.
    Inventors: Dmitry Yarmolich, Denis Yarmolich, Ramachandran Vasant Kumar, Rumen Tomov, Hyun-Kyung Kim, Teng Zhao
  • Patent number: 11970346
    Abstract: A process and apparatus for handling a rigid sheet is disclosed. The process comprises engaging opposing faces of a sheet at its periphery with engagement means providing a second engagement means, movable relative to the first and engaging the sheet with the second engagement means. The sheet is then moved relative to the second engagement means whilst the sheet is engaged with the first engagement means and is then clamped. The sheet is then moved to a desired orientation or location whilst maintaining the first and second engagement means in fixed relative position. The process is useful in handling glass sheeting and in the production of multiple glazed units and on an insulating glass production line.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 11, 2021
    Date of Patent: April 30, 2024
    Assignee: GS-MR GLASS AND STONE (MACHINERY AND ROBOTICS) UK & IRELAND LTD.
    Inventor: Robert Owen
  • Patent number: D1026290
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 4, 2022
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2024
    Inventor: Yuanwen Fan