Patents Examined by Donald McElheny
  • Patent number: 6856909
    Abstract: Detecting in an earth formation a boundary between first and second formation regions having different resistivities, wherein the first formation region is traversed by a wellbore, using a logging tool provided with a number of electrodes including a monitoring electrode, the method having: a) selecting a location of the logging tool in the wellbore; b) assuming a position of the boundary relative to the selected location, selecting outside the wellbore a target point relative to the selected location, and selecting a target value for a selected parameter in the target point; c) assuming a model wherein the logging tool in the wellbore is surrounded by a homogeneous formation having the resistivity of the first formation region, and determining how two of the electrodes have to be energized in order that in the target point the selected parameter has the target value; d) selecting a monitoring parameter at the monitoring electrode; e) placing the logging tool at the selected location in the wellbore; f) de
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2002
    Date of Patent: February 15, 2005
    Assignee: Shell Oil Company
    Inventor: Erik Jan Banning-Geertsma
  • Patent number: 6856911
    Abstract: A method of migration of a seismic data is disclosed. The data include a data point having an input source location, an input receiver location, and a scatter point associated therewith. The method includes determining a projected source location, and determining a projected receiver location. The seismic data point is mapped from an input travel time to a projected travel time. A pseudo-offset is determined based on the projected travel time and the data point is mapped to the pseudo-offset.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 8, 2001
    Date of Patent: February 15, 2005
    Assignee: PGS Americas, Inc.
    Inventors: Weizhong Wang, Long Don Pham
  • Patent number: 6856908
    Abstract: A passive clear turbulence (CAT) detection system for use on-board an aircraft comprises: an antenna for receiving electromagnetic radiation and for generating electrical signals representative thereof; and a processor for processing the electrical signals with at least one CAT waveform signature to detect CAT activity in relation to the aircraft. Also disclosed is a method of detecting clear air turbulence (CAT) from an aircraft, the method comprising the steps of: receiving electromagnetic radiation and generating electrical signals representative thereof; and processing the electrical signals with at least one CAT waveform signature to detect CAT activity in relation to the aircraft.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 11, 2003
    Date of Patent: February 15, 2005
    Assignee: L-3 Communications Avionics Systems, Inc.
    Inventors: Krishna Devarasetty, Ken L. Rodgers
  • Patent number: 6856910
    Abstract: A method for determining a formation dip angle including extracting features from an acquired well log to obtain a set of features, validating the set of features to obtain a subset of features, generating a layered model using the subset of features, and generating a synthetic log using the layered model and a forward model.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 9, 2003
    Date of Patent: February 15, 2005
    Assignee: Schlumberger Technology Corporation
    Inventors: Jaideva C. Goswami, Denis J. Heliot, Jacques R. Tabanou, Christopher E. Morriss
  • Patent number: 6853921
    Abstract: A method of real time field wide reservoir management comprising the steps of processing collected field wide reservoir data in accordance with one or more predetermined algorithms to obtain a resultant desired field wide production/injection forecast, generating a signal to one or more individual well control devices instructing the device to increase or decrease flow through the well control device, transmitting the signal to the individual well control device, opening or closing the well control device in response to the signal to increase or decrease the production for one or more selected wells on a real time basis. The system for field wide reservoir management comprising a CPU for processing collected field wide reservoir data, generating a resultant desired field wide production/injection forecast and calculating a target production rate for one or more wells and one or more down hole production/injection control devices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 12, 2001
    Date of Patent: February 8, 2005
    Assignee: Halliburton Energy Services, Inc.
    Inventors: Jacob Thomas, Craig William Godfrey, William Launey Vidrine, Jerry Wayne Wauters, Douglas Donald Seiler
  • Patent number: 6845324
    Abstract: The invention provides a system and method for receiving weather forecast information in a mobile unit (MU) and using that information to warn a user of a future weather hazard with reference to the MU's location and/or intended direction of travel. A hazard location algorithm compares a forecast location of each MU with a forecast hazard and transmits a warning to each MU that is predicted to encounter the hazard. As the MU moves, its actual position is updated in the forecasting center, and a revised warning is transmitted to the MU. The hazard information may be displayed on the user's system in the form of a rotating map with an automatically adjustable range to display warning information in relation to the system's location. Warnings, including audio warnings for playback and crawls for display on a television, can be automatically generated and spoken or displayed to a user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 13, 2003
    Date of Patent: January 18, 2005
    Assignee: User-Centric Enterprises, Inc.
    Inventor: Michael R. Smith
  • Patent number: 6842700
    Abstract: A method for evaluating well performance includes deriving a reservoir effective permeability estimate from data points in a production history, wherein the data points include dimensional flow rates and dimensional cumulative production, at least one of the data points has no sand face flowing pressure information; and deriving at least one reservoir property from the reservoir effective permeability estimate and the data points according to a well type and a boundary condition for a well that produced the production data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 29, 2003
    Date of Patent: January 11, 2005
    Assignee: Schlumberger Technology Corporation
    Inventor: Bobby D. Poe
  • Patent number: 6842699
    Abstract: This invention provides a measurement-while-drilling (MWD) downhole assembly for use in drilling boreholes which utilizes gyroscopes, magnetometers and accelerometers for determining the borehole inclination and azimuth during the drilling of the borehole. With the present invention, a secondary borehole for secondary recovery operations may be drilled with accuracy in proximity to a cased producing borehole.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 14, 2003
    Date of Patent: January 11, 2005
    Assignee: Baker Hughes Incorporated
    Inventor: Robert A. Estes
  • Patent number: 6839633
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for imaging subsurface fractures using an ST plane for quick looks and quality checks at the wellsite. Incident angles of impinging acoustic waves with respect to receivers are estimated from actual and apparent slowness, and the position of the fracture is estimated from the travel time and incident angle. The fracture can be imaged by plotting values from the ST plane onto the position of the fracture.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 13, 2003
    Date of Patent: January 4, 2005
    Assignee: Schlumberger Technology Corporation
    Inventors: Satoshi Basaki, Kasumi Fujii
  • Patent number: 6836730
    Abstract: A broadcast network for selectively transmitting individualized weather output signals to at least one of a plurality of communicator devices remotely located from the broadcast network. The broadcast network comprises a user input database, a communicator location database, a weather analysis unit, and a communication network. The user input database contains a plurality of user profiles. At least some of the user profiles contains parameters provided from a pre-defined user profile. Each user profile includes a user identifier code. The communicator location database contains real-time data indicative of the spatial locations of the communicator devices. The weather analysis unit automatically and continuously compares the parameters in the user input database and the spatial locations of the corresponding communicator devices contained in the communicator location database with real-time weather data to generate individualized weather output signals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2003
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2004
    Assignee: Weatherbank, Inc.
    Inventors: Steven A. Root, Michael R. Root
  • Patent number: 6834236
    Abstract: The present invention provides methods to be used in seismic data processing to address problems encountered during data acquisition from a limited number of receivers. The present invention applies parametric methods to provide superior wavemember resolution.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 20, 2003
    Date of Patent: December 21, 2004
    Assignee: WesternGeco L.L.C.
    Inventor: Kambiz Iranpour
  • Patent number: 6834237
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a method of training a classification system for characterising a biological sample, a diagnostic classification system, as well as a method of characterising a condition in an animal or a human being by using parameters obtained from the sample. The invention relates to classification based on physical parameters obtained from luminescence spectroscopy on light emitted from the sample. The data obtained from a spectrofluorimetric analysis can be considered a finger-print of the sample. Each sample gives rise to a unique spectrofluorometric set of physical parameters. By analysing the fluorescence data, it is possible to classify samples into two or more classes based on the fluorescence spectra, such as classifying with respect to presence/abs of a specific disease, group of diseases or risk of later attaining a specific disease or a body condition, or concentration of a specific compound or medicine.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 16, 2003
    Date of Patent: December 21, 2004
    Assignee: Medicometrics APS
    Inventors: Lars Noergaard, Morten Albrechtsen, Ole Ingemann Olsen, Niels Harrit, Rasmus Bro-Joergensen
  • Patent number: 6834235
    Abstract: A method of processing multi-component seismic data acquired at a receiver comprises determining a suitable decomposition scheme to use. This makes use of the existence of pairs of wavefield components that are uncoupled from one another. If there is no physical coupling between first and second wavefield components, the first and second components should not arrive at a receiver location at the same time. The method comprises decomposing a first portion, for example a test portion, of the seismic data into a plurality of wavefield components using an initial decomposition scheme. First and second wavefield components of the decomposed data that should be uncoupled from one another are then selected, and their product is determined. Since the first and second wavefield components of the decomposed data should be uncoupled from one another, their product should be zero or close to zero and a product that is significantly different from zero indicates that the decomposition scheme is inaccurate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 10, 2003
    Date of Patent: December 21, 2004
    Assignee: WesternGeco, L.L.C.
    Inventors: Remco Muijs, Johan Robertsson
  • Patent number: 6832158
    Abstract: A real-time method is disclosed for maintaining subterranean formation stability through monitoring the interaction between the formation and fluids introduced into (or produced from) a wellbore penetrating the formation. The method employs real-time wellbore (in)stability logging methodology. The method is exemplified by a Pore Pressure Transmission (PPT) test. In such test, test fluids are exposed to Pierre II shales (20% w/w NaCl solution and sodium silicate fluid with 20% w/w NaCl, for example) in a PPT apparatus. Membrane efficiency of the two fluids when exposed to the outcrop shale is calculated, and based on the simultaneous acquisition of acoustic data, estimation of a dynamic rock property is made.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 21, 2004
    Date of Patent: December 14, 2004
    Assignee: Halliburton Energy Services, Inc.
    Inventors: Ali I. Mese, Fersheed Khodadad Mody
  • Patent number: 6832159
    Abstract: A method for identifying environmental effects in well log data includes selecting a plurality of models, each of the plurality of models including at least one parameter to be optimized; fitting the models to the well log data by optimizing the at least one parameter, the fitting producing a plurality of optimized models; determining an indicator of goodness of fit for each of the plurality of optimized models; and selecting a model representing a best fit of the well log data based on the indicator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 23, 2003
    Date of Patent: December 14, 2004
    Assignee: Schlumberger Technology Corporation
    Inventors: Jan W. Smits, Peter T. Wu, Qiming Li, Cheng Bing Liu
  • Patent number: 6829537
    Abstract: A system for filtering elevation-sensitive data. The system generates coincident contour and attribute maps of a physical structure. A filter band that is limited to a certain range of contour values is used to filter the attribute values that are output to a CBA attribute map. The filter band applied to the data is defined between upper and lower boundaries, with each boundary having a substantially constant contour value. Thus, each data point has a uniquely-shaped a real filter that is at least partly defined by the filter band.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 10, 2003
    Date of Patent: December 7, 2004
    Assignee: ConocoPhillips Company
    Inventors: Dennis B. Neff, Scott A. Runnestrand, Franklin D. Lane
  • Patent number: 6826481
    Abstract: A broadcast network for selectively transmitting individualized output signals to remote communicator devices. The broadcast network is comprised of a user input database, a communicator location database, an information database, an analysis unit and a communication network. The user input database contains user-defined parameters and each of the user-defined parameters includes a user profile. The user profile in each of the user-defined parameters utilizes a user identifier code and identifies a communicator device associated with a particular user. The communicator location database contains real-time data indicative of the spatial locations of the communicator devices. The information database contains real-time data for the spatial locations contained in the communicator location database. The analysis unit repeatedly compares the spatial location of each communicator device contained in the communicator location database with the real-time data and generates an individualized output signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 19, 2003
    Date of Patent: November 30, 2004
    Assignee: Weatherbank, Inc.
    Inventors: Steven A. Root, Michael R. Root
  • Patent number: 6826483
    Abstract: A single intranet, internet, or World Wide Web-accessible interface is provided for, initiation of, interactive adjustments to, and access to the outputs of an integrated workflow of a plurality of analytical computer applications for characterization and analysis of traits and optimal management of the extraction of oil, gas, and water from a subsurface reservoir. By combining disparate analytical application tools in a seamless and remotely accessible, package, incompatibility problems caused by the disparate nature of petroleum analysis methods is reduced. The assumptions, analytic processes, and input data used for one analysis may be readily retrieved and re-evaluated for that reservoir or for future evaluations of the same or other reservoirs. Thus a flexible database of analysis tools and data may be implemented for access, input, and output of workflow and analytical data in the field, in conjunction with standard main computer servers, software and plug-ins, and portable remote computers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 13, 2000
    Date of Patent: November 30, 2004
    Assignee: The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York
    Inventors: Roger N. Anderson, Albert Boulanger, Wei He, Jody Winston, Liquing Xu, Ulisses Mello, Wendell Wiggins
  • Patent number: 6823263
    Abstract: A system and method for generating weather reports and the like which are precisely computed automatically for a particular individual user's geographic location and which are provided automatically to the individual user. A user establishes an individualized user profile in which the user defines a particular location of interest, a contact address, and optionally, a personalized activity weather condition profile, establishing a preferred weather condition profile for activities of interest. A detailed and accurate weather forecasting model is run to provide high geographical and temporal resolution forecast data. The resulting modeled forecast data may be constrained by an operator using a constrainer module. The high resolution forecast data is compared to the individual user profile and a personalized weather report for the particular location, times, and conditions of interest are provided automatically to the individual, e.g., via e-mail and/or at a personalized internet web page.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 11, 2000
    Date of Patent: November 23, 2004
    Assignee: Weather Central, Inc.
    Inventors: Terence F. Kelly, Grant H. Brohm, Richard T. Daly, Victor W. Marsh, John S. Moore, Brett A. Wilt
  • Patent number: 6820009
    Abstract: A system and method for electronic input of data in the field comprises a reader for reading a tag associated with an agricultural input. A reading time is associated with the reading of the tag. A tag identifier of the tag and the reading time is communicated to trigger the collection of agricultural input data during performance of an agricultural input. An input identifier is assigned for a corresponding agricultural input. Data is collected substantially contemporaneously with performing the agricultural input. The collected data is stored or made available in a standard format for sharing with at least one of an application and a group of users.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 10, 2003
    Date of Patent: November 16, 2004
    Assignee: Deere & Company
    Inventor: Mark Steven Sommer