Patents Examined by Hubert Cheung
  • Patent number: 9128946
    Abstract: Systems and methods for storing data files to a file system coupled to a database, and reading data files from the file system. In one aspect, a method for transferring a data file between a client system and a server system is provided. The client executes a first computer operating system and the server executes a second computer operating system, includes a file system, and is coupled to a database. The method includes receiving, by the database, a request to store the data file, wherein the request is transmitted to the database by a software application associated with the client. The method also includes receiving the data file from the client, storing the data file in a directory in the server file system, storing a path for the directory in the database, and outputting one of a success code and a failure code to the client.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2008
    Date of Patent: September 8, 2015
    Assignee: MasterCard International Incorporated
    Inventor: Thomas McGeehan
  • Patent number: 9122559
    Abstract: The present invention provides an extensible dependency management framework and method. Specifically, the present invention provides dependency management handler(s) and dispatcher(s) (e.g., revalidation and/or refactoring). The handlers are created and registered by users of the framework. When a change to a resource is detected, a notification is received by a dispatcher from an external caller. Upon receipt, the dispatcher will query an index to identify dependents, and then call a dependency management handler associated with the changed resource to obtain and implement updates for the dependents. In so doing, a list of the dependents will be provided to the dependency management handler.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 21, 2008
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2015
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: John Mourra, Vladimir Klicnik, Lok Tin Loi, Hiroshi Tsuji
  • Patent number: 9116932
    Abstract: A system and method of querying data. The method includes transforming first data according to a unified data model. The unified data model has a hierarchical structure with tree nodes and leaf nodes. A leaf node contains a table. The method further includes executing a unified data model query on the first data (having been transformed) to result in second data. The method further includes outputting the second data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 24, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 25, 2015
    Assignee: BUSINESS OBJECTS SOFTWARE LIMITED
    Inventors: Xiaofan Zhou, Andrey Belyy, Freda Xu, Wu Cao
  • Patent number: 9075836
    Abstract: A method, computer program product, and system for partitioning keys for a hash table in order to improve performance of the hash table. A hash function is used to generate a hash table by mapping a set of keys to a corresponding set of hash codes, and a hash failure is detected if the hash function fails to map the entire set of keys. To resolve the hash failure, the set of keys is partitioned to form subsets of keys that can be individually mapped.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2010
    Date of Patent: July 7, 2015
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Nicholas D. Matsakis
  • Patent number: 9053197
    Abstract: An apparatus and a method for suggesting a web site is described. In one embodiment, a user at a client enters a web address. A suggestion server receives the web address and generates one or more suggested web addresses for the user based on an analysis of captured aggregate online users behavior in relation to the web address. The suggestion server stores and organizes results of the analysis of the captured aggregate online users behavior. The results includes a list of two or more substantially related and relevant web addresses. The suggestion server compares the web address with the results of the analysis to generate the one or more suggested web addresses. The one or more suggested web addresses are sent to the client.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 26, 2008
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2015
    Assignee: Red Hat, Inc.
    Inventor: James Paul Schneider
  • Patent number: 8898105
    Abstract: A method and system is provided for maintaining customer data in a data store system utilizing a scalable partitioning framework. More specifically, the data store of a customer service system is partitioned (divided) into multiple partitions by a partitionable key of customer data so that each partition owns a subset of the customer data. By maintaining several partitions that store a subset of the customer data exclusive to each other, blackout or brownout problems can be local to one partition and, thus, the availability for the entire system will be increased. Moreover, a set of partitionable keys, a minimal unit to be moved between partitions, is grouped and associated with a partition. By eliminating direct dependencies between the partitions and the partitionable keys, the system can have great flexibility with regard to migrating customer data between partitions and adding a new partition.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 2, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 25, 2014
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Nicholas K. Peddy, Chelsea Krueger, Michael J. McCann, Suguna Subramaniam, W. Cary Hall, Sasan Dashtinezhad, Guy Bialostocki
  • Patent number: 8856130
    Abstract: A system, a computerized method, and a computer program product for classification of items based on their attributes and on a classification scheme that is defined based on information pertaining to each item of a set of items, and which is indicative of: (a) a quantity of occurrences of the item in a sample; (b) a quantity of successful occurrences of the item in the sample; and (c) at least one attribute of the item with regard to at least one variable out of a set of variables.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 9, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 7, 2014
    Assignee: Kenshoo Ltd.
    Inventors: Gilad Armon-Kest, Adina Lederhendler, Arriel Johan Benis, Dorit Zilberbrand, Shahar Siegman
  • Patent number: 8856134
    Abstract: In accordance with one or more embodiments, a system for facilitating transfer of data and information over a network includes a database component, a communication component adapted to communicate with a user via a portable communication device over the network, and a processing component adapted to receive a request for data and information from the user via the portable communication device over the network and process the request by accessing one or more documents from the database component related to at least one component of a machine specified by the user passed with the request. The communication component transfers the one or more documents from the database component to the portable communication device for viewing by the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 9, 2008
    Date of Patent: October 7, 2014
    Assignee: The Boeing Company
    Inventors: Brent L. Hadley, Patrick J. Eames
  • Patent number: 8849858
    Abstract: In an information management system, activity data is collected and analyzed for patterns. The information management system may be policy based. Activity data may be organized as entries including information on user, application, machine, action, object or document, time, and location. When checking for patterns in the activity or historical data, techniques may include inferencing, frequency checking, location and distance checking, and relationship checking, and any combination of these. Analyzing the activity data may include comparing like types or categories of information for two or more entries.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2006
    Date of Patent: September 30, 2014
    Assignee: NextLabs, Inc.
    Inventor: Keng Lim
  • Patent number: 8843449
    Abstract: Methods, devices and systems to make compressed backup copies of in-use compressed database indices are described. In general, an “oldest” time at which index pages in working memory had been updated is identified. Compressed index pages may be directly copied without the need to bring them into working memory or uncompressing them. The identified “oldest” time is then associated with the compressed backup copy. In some embodiments, an entire compressed backup copy may be associated with a single point in time (e.g., the identified “oldest” time). In other embodiments, a compressed backup copy may be associated with multiple points in time (e.g., one time for each portion of the compressed index that is being backed-up). Compressed indices copied in accordance with the invention may be used during restore operations to reconstruct database indices using the identified “oldest” time and database log files.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 16, 2009
    Date of Patent: September 23, 2014
    Assignee: BMC Software, Inc.
    Inventors: Thomas G. Price, Richard W. Cline
  • Patent number: 8825640
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus for ranking uncertain data in a probabilistic database are disclosed. An example method disclosed herein comprises using a set of data tuples representing a plurality of possible data set instantiations associated with a respective plurality of instantiation probabilities to store non-deterministic data in a database, each data tuple corresponding to a set of possible data tuple instantiations, each data set instantiation realizable by selecting a respective data tuple instantiation for at least some of the data tuples, the method further comprising determining an expected rank for each data tuple included in at least a subset of the set of data tuples, the expected rank for a particular data tuple representing a combination of weighted component ranks of the particular data tuple, each component rank representing a ranking of the data tuple in a corresponding data set instantiation, each component ranking weighted by a respective instantiation probability.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 16, 2009
    Date of Patent: September 2, 2014
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
    Inventors: Graham Cormode, Feifei Li, Ke Yi
  • Patent number: 8719244
    Abstract: Methods and systems for retrieval of information items and associated sentence fragments are described. One method described comprises identifying at least a first entry in an index relevant to a search query, wherein the first entry comprises a first information item and a first associated sentence fragment, and wherein the index comprises a plurality of information items and associated sentence fragments, and generating a search result set relevant to the search query comprising at least the first information item.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2005
    Date of Patent: May 6, 2014
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventor: Alexandru Marius Pasca
  • Patent number: 8688645
    Abstract: A method includes quiescing a file system of source storage system through a backup engine associated with the source storage system and a destination storage system and capturing, at the source storage system, a point-in-time image of the file system thereof through the backup engine. The method also includes sharing the captured point-in-time image of the file system of the source storage system with the destination storage system to enable the storage systems to have a common base data and negotiating between the storage systems for the common base data. Further, the method includes applying, to the common base data at the source storage system, a differential change corresponding to a difference between the common base data and a point-in-time image of the file system of the source storage system backed up at the destination storage system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2010
    Date of Patent: April 1, 2014
    Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
    Inventor: Dhiraj Sadhwani
  • Patent number: 8671076
    Abstract: A copy utility creates a copy of source database objects that is transactionally consistent to a consistent point-in-time, and a recovery utility applies log records to the consistent copy to make a resulting image that is updated as of an identified point-in-time (i.e., the current time or a point-in-time after the copy was made). To effectively recover and apply the logs so that no previously in-flight transactions are lost, the copy utility registers a starting point indicating a point-in-time for logs to be applied to the copy and also registers a smallest lock size used to block access to target data when the copy was made. The recovery utility bases its recovery operations using the registered starting point and the smallest lock size when applying log records to the copy so as not to lose any previously in-flight transactions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 8, 2007
    Date of Patent: March 11, 2014
    Assignee: BMC Software, Inc.
    Inventors: Thomas G. Price, Stanley J. Dee, Michael S. Murley, Richard T. Weaver
  • Patent number: 8635248
    Abstract: A method of providing updates from a social network to a desktop application is provided. An update is created in an application and if the application has permission, it creates an entry in a recent activity queue. The queue is then subject to analysis to reduce the number of entries in the queue. Subscribers that have permission to receive updates from the publisher and the publishing application then receive updates from the publisher.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Oludare Victor Obasanjo, Paul Richard Chen Ming, Deepa Chandramouli, Jiahe Liu, Austin Longino, Robert M. Dolin
  • Patent number: 8626771
    Abstract: A method of creating a reputation for a container that contains data is disclosed. A user reviews a container that is stored on a network and the user posts an opinion rating of the container. The opinion rating is stored along with an user identification. The opinion rating and the user identification are added to a database and the data in the database is used to calculate a reputation for the container.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2007
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: J Clinton Paul Fowler, Julio Estrada
  • Patent number: 8612435
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for activity-based users' interests modeling for determining relevance of the content distributed to the users is provided. Modeling of the user's interests starts by collecting information about the actions that the user performed and about the contents that were associated with the actions. That information may be used to determine how much interest the user has had in the individual subjects up to date, and to determine which subjects became more or less important to the user over time. Further processing of the information about the interests of each of the individual users in a group of users may produce characteristics indicating the interests of the group as a whole. Additional processing may generate the information reflecting relative importance of the interests of an individual user in the group to the interests of other users in the same group.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 16, 2009
    Date of Patent: December 17, 2013
    Assignee: Yahoo! Inc.
    Inventors: Hemanth Sambrani, Rohan Monga, Sudharsan Vasudevan, Sanjeev Gupta
  • Patent number: 8595228
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, for establishing preferences for sites that are explicitly identified by a user by either a textual input or an acceptance in response to a recommendation, and adjusting the presentation of search results based on these preferences.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 9, 2009
    Date of Patent: November 26, 2013
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Bryan Horling, Michael Y. Brukman, Owen Otto, Philip McDonnell, Kavi J. Goel, Paul G. Haahr
  • Patent number: 8595225
    Abstract: A system receives location identifiers associated with documents visited by one or more users. The system retrieves the documents using the received location identifiers and maps the retrieved documents to one or more topics. The system determines a popularity value associated with the retrieved documents and correlates the popularity value with the one or more topics to determine a per-topic popularity for the retrieved documents.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 30, 2004
    Date of Patent: November 26, 2013
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Amit Singhal, Urs Hoelzle
  • Patent number: 8572069
    Abstract: Disclosed are methods and systems for indexing or retrieving materials accessible through computer networks.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 3, 2006
    Date of Patent: October 29, 2013
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventor: Jay Michael Ponte