Patents Examined by Andalib Lodhi
  • Patent number: 8185560
    Abstract: The present inventors recognized a need for improving conventional informational retrieval systems, particularly those intended for retrieval of legal information. Accordingly, they devised systems, methods, and software that facilitate online access to documents, such as non-opinion legal documents, in context of a legal workflow. An exemplary method of operation includes determining that a user of a client access device is performing a litigation-related task using a word-processing application on the client-access device. And in response to an affirmative determination, providing trial court materials relevant to the litigation-related task to the client access device without the user leaving the word-processing application. In some embodiments, the word-processing application is launched from a case-management application that provides case, activity, and role information to the online legal research system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 30, 2006
    Date of Patent: May 22, 2012
    Assignee: Thomson Reuters Global Resources
    Inventors: Yohendran Arumainayagam, Steven Brant Anderson
  • Patent number: 8180780
    Abstract: A method, apparatus and program product facilitate the collaborative development of an algorithm by, in part, displaying an algorithm associated with a performance attribute, and receiving user input relating to the algorithm from a plurality of networked users. The performance attribute of the algorithm may be automatically modified based on the user input. The modified performance attribute may be displayed to the plurality of networked users. A query may be received from a user interested in the algorithm. In response to the user query, the algorithm may be located from among a plurality of algorithms. For instance, the algorithm may be located from among the plurality of algorithms by matching the performance attribute to a criterion of the user query. Alternatively or additionally, the algorithm may be located by matching the performance attribute to a profile of the user submitting the user query.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 2007
    Date of Patent: May 15, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Eric Nels Herness, William T. Newport, John Joseph Stecher, Robert E. Wisniewski
  • Patent number: 8170985
    Abstract: A protected file is retained in secondary storage for a retention period, and a corresponding stub file is retained in primary storage for the retention period. The stub file retains attributes of the file indicating a location of the file data in the secondary storage and indicting that the stub file is to be retained for the retention period. A system administrator may instruct a primary file server that a secondary file server supports retention based protection and it is desired to protect stub files corresponding to protected files that are migrated to the secondary file server. The primary file server may request the secondary file server to return a protection status of the file after migration. This enables automatic policy-based migration to both file level retention (FLR) and non-FLR retention protected secondary storage from diverse applications accessing FLR or non-FLR files in the primary storage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2006
    Date of Patent: May 1, 2012
    Assignee: EMC Corporation
    Inventors: Eyal Zimran, Christian J. Chuba, Christopher H. Stacey, Mary Walker
  • Patent number: 8156144
    Abstract: A system and method for implementing a metadata search interface is disclosed. The technology creates a configuration file for the metadata search interface comprising a predicate describing a search parameter of the metadata search interface. The configuration file further comprises a control attribute which associates the predicate with a control describing how a display element displayed on the metadata search interface is displayed and a correlation between the display element and the predicate. The technology further comprises generating the metadata search interface in runtime based upon the control.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 23, 2008
    Date of Patent: April 10, 2012
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: John Begley, Sean Squires, Max Kryatov
  • Patent number: 8150835
    Abstract: An approach is provided for efficiently searching information in an information space utilizing information signatures. A signature application receives queries over information sources. The signature application, for each of the queries, generates a polynomial by defining the each query against the information sources as input parameters in polynomial form. The signature application provides irreducible polynomials over a finite field of a degree of orthogonality by factoring polynomials generated from the queries. The signature application adjusts the degree of orthogonality of the irreducible polynomials to provide adjusted irreducible polynomials, each of which is a signature and corresponds to a signature fragment, such that the signature fragments have overlapping portions. The signature application causes at least in part storage of the signatures or the signature fragments in a signature domain over an information space.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2009
    Date of Patent: April 3, 2012
    Assignee: Nokia Corporation
    Inventors: Sergey Boldyrev, Ian Justin Oliver, Jukka Honkola, Antti Tuomas Lappeteläinen, Sergey Balandin
  • Patent number: 8145679
    Abstract: The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a method that includes inferring labels for videos, users, advertisements, groups of users, and other entities included in a social network system. The inferred labels can be used to generate recommendations such as videos or advertisements in which a user may be interested. Inferred labels can be generated based on social or other relationships derived from, for example, profiles or activities of social network users. Inferred labels can be advantageous when explicit information about these entities is not available. For example, a particular user may not have clicked on any online advertisements, so the user is not explicitly linked to any advertisements.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 13, 2010
    Date of Patent: March 27, 2012
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Shumeet Baluja, Yushi Jing, Dandapani Sivakumar, Jay Yagnik
  • Patent number: 8140563
    Abstract: The invention allows a user to enter a search criteria in a search form once and search multiple web services, search engines and web pages without the need for repeatedly re-creating the search criteria for each web service or search engine because of different and varying supported formats. Once the user has defined their search query, the search query is passed to a query manager in the browser application for formatting the search criteria into a generic query format. The generic query format provides a unified and generic interface to all other query mechanisms supported by different web services, search engines and web pages.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 16, 2004
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Nicholas J Midgley
  • Patent number: 8140497
    Abstract: Systems and methods for implementing and using nonblocking zero-indirection software transactional memory (NZSTM) are disclosed. NZSTM systems implement object-based software transactional memory that eliminates all levels of indirection except in the uncommon case of a conflict with an unresponsive thread. Shared data is co-located with a header in an NZObject, and is addressable at a fixed offset from the header. Conflicting transactions are requested to abort themselves without being forced to abort. NZObjects are modified in place when there are no conflicts, and when a conflicting transaction acknowledges the abort request. In the uncommon case, NZObjects are inflated to introduce a locator and some levels of indirection, and are restored to their un-inflated form following resolution of the conflict.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2007
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2012
    Assignee: Oracle America, Inc.
    Inventors: James R. Goodman, Mark S. Moir, Fu'ad W. F. Al Tabba′, Cong Wang
  • Patent number: 8135693
    Abstract: A process as provided for streamlined opinion data submission to decision makers. The process provides electronic transmission to local, state and Federal elected representatives based on physical location, provides/gathers issue-based opinions from the public, and consolidates the opinions in a relational database for dissemination to the public and/or elected officials and/or other decision makers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 21, 2009
    Date of Patent: March 13, 2012
    Inventors: Sandra B. Brazier, Deidra B. Jeffries
  • Patent number: 8135760
    Abstract: Embodiments of the invention relate to determining the lineage of a content unit stored on an object addressable storage (OAS) system. When a content unit that is derived from at least one other content unit is stored on an OAS system, metadata that identifies the source content unit(s) from which the at least one content unit was derived may be stored. This metadata may be subsequently used to determine the lineage of the content unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 1, 2007
    Date of Patent: March 13, 2012
    Assignee: EMC Corporation
    Inventors: Stephen Todd, John D. Hushon, Jr.
  • Patent number: 8131669
    Abstract: Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture wherein one client node is selected from a plurality of client nodes. A determination is made that an object corresponding to a client node has to be stored. A determination is made as to whether the object has already been stored in the server node by the one selected client node. The object is stored at the server node, in response to determining that the object has not already been stored in the server node by the one selected client node.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 12, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 6, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: David Maxwell Cannon, Colin Scott Dawson, Robert Clair Edwards, Jr., Michael Allen Kaczmarski, Christopher Zaremba
  • Patent number: 8126929
    Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for encoding a variable length structure such that it facilitates forward and reverse scans of a list of such structures as needed. While the techniques are applicable to a wide variety of applications, they are particularly well-suited for use with structures such as those found in compressed database indexes. For example, a computer-implemented method for processing one or more variable length data structures includes the following steps. Each variable length data structure is obtained. Each variable length structure comprises one or more data block. A variable length encoding process is applied to the one or more blocks of each variable length data structure which comprises setting a continuation data value in each block to a first value or a second value, wherein the setting of the continuation data values enables bi-directional scanning of each variable length structure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 28, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Bishwaranjan Bhattacharjee, Lipyeow Lim, Timothy Ray Malkemus, George Andrei Mihaila
  • Patent number: 8122031
    Abstract: Methods, program products, and systems for classifying feeds are described. A system acquires user created labels and user subscribed data feeds from a group of users. The system generates a topic-feed association rule by generating a topic-feed mapping that contains topic-feed pairs, calculating a weight for each topic-feed pair, and selecting topic-feed pairs whose weight reaches a threshold. The data feeds are classified into topics according to the topic-feed association rules. The system obtains user categories from a group of users. Using a probability model, the system matches the user subscribed data feeds with the user categories. The system further generates a topic classification, associating topics with user categories. Using the topic classification, topic-feed association rules, and a user's specific data, the system predicts a user's feeds of interest and recommends data feeds to the user accordingly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 2009
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2012
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Derek Mauro, Beverly Yang
  • Patent number: 8122008
    Abstract: A method for joining tables in multiple heterogeneous distributed databases implemented by at least two data sources accessible to a federal database server over a network includes: transmitting from the federated database server a sub-command to a first of the data sources responsive to the federated database server receiving a data query; retrieving, with the federated database server, block data from the first data source related to the data query using block fetching according to the sub-command; transmitting, with the federated database server, at least a portion of the block data to a second of the data sources together with an instruction for the second data source to perform a join operation on the portion of the block data and a data table stored by the second data source related to the query; and retrieving a result of the join operation with the federated database server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2009
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Ming Li, Hai Feng Li, Yun Feng Sun, Sheng Zhao
  • Patent number: 8112436
    Abstract: In one embodiment, access a search query comprising one or more query words, at least one of the query words representing one or more query concepts; access a network document identified for a search query by a search engine, the network document comprising one or more document words, at least one of the document words representing one or more document concepts; semantic-text match the search query and the network document to determine one or more negative semantic-text matches; and construct one or more negative features based on the negative semantic-text matches.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2009
    Date of Patent: February 7, 2012
    Assignee: Yahoo ! Inc.
    Inventors: Yumao Lu, Lei Duan, Fan Li, Benoit Dumoulin, Xing Wei
  • Patent number: 8112435
    Abstract: A system, method and program product for modifying data packets being communicated between a client and a Web application to enhance the Web experience of a user. A system is disclosed for enhancing searches being performed by a search engine application, and monitoring data packets passing through a network node to identify a data packet containing an original search query; modifying the data packet containing the original search query to create a modified search query; and forwarding the modified search query to the search engine application in place of the original search query.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 7, 2012
    Assignee: WifiFee, LLC
    Inventors: Brian D. Epstein, Bruce Hodge
  • Patent number: 8103663
    Abstract: It is also an object of the present invention to provide objective advertisement plan(s). The target specifying information storage part 202 stores information for specifying target attribution including information for specifying information delivery medium of an object to contact with correspondently with searchers' ID. The search term storage part 203 correspondently stores a searcher's ID, the timing of search, and the term used for the search. The extraction part 204 extracts the timing of search for such search term for each searcher's ID, segments the extracted search timing for each searcher's ID into a predetermined number in chronological order and then extracts searcher's ID belonging to each segment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 24, 2012
    Assignee: Dentsu Inc.
    Inventors: Satoshi Nishida, Shigetaka Yamakawa, Mieko Sugihara, Keita Manabe, Jun Hasegawa, Yutaka Kamoshita, Hideaki Haruta, Yoshifumi Morita
  • Patent number: 8103705
    Abstract: A text annotation structured storage system stores text annotations with associated type information in a structured data store. The present system persists or stores annotations in a structured data store in an indexable and queryable format. Exemplary structured data stores comprise XML databases and relational databases. The system exploits type information in a type system to develop corresponding schemas in a structured data model. The system comprises techniques for mapping annotations to an XML data model and a relational data model. The system captures various features of the type system, such as complex types and inheritance, in the schema for the persistent store. In particular, the repository provides support for path navigation over the hierarchical type system starting at any type.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 23, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 24, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Krishna Prasad Chitrapura, Rahul Gupta, Rajasekar Krishnamurthy, Sriram Raghavan, Shivakumar Vaithyanathan, Huaiyu Zhu, Jennifer L. Beckmann
  • Patent number: 8078622
    Abstract: A system and method that provides users of network data storage systems with the ability to gain the advantages of a clustered storage server system, in which volumes stored on multiple server nodes are linked into a virtual global hierarchical namespace, without first having to migrate their data to the clustered storage server system. The system employs an extended virtual global hierarchical namespace that allows client systems to access, via the extended global namespace, volumes stored on the clustered storage server system and on one or more storage servers that are remote from and do not constitute a part of the clustered system. The extended global namespace can also be employed to perform migration of volume data among the multiple nodes of the clustered storage server system and the remote storage servers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 30, 2008
    Date of Patent: December 13, 2011
    Assignee: Network Appliance, Inc.
    Inventors: Faramarz Rabii, Hooman Vassef, Peter Corbett, Keith Arner
  • Patent number: 8069187
    Abstract: Methods and systems of the present invention allow for displaying suggested concept-based results. An exemplary method may comprise the steps of receiving a combination domain name and top level domain (TLD), determining from ontological calculations suggested TLDs related to the concept of the combination and displaying the suggested combination of the domain name with suggested TLDs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 26, 2008
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2011
    Assignee: The Go Daddy Group, Inc.
    Inventors: Warren Adelman, Matthew Jallo, Shawn Fitzpatrick