Patents Examined by Michael Hicks
  • Patent number: 8352456
    Abstract: Systems and methods facilitate efficient data processing in a computer environment. Data producers and consumers are considered in aggregate rather than in isolation. In one instance, interaction between data producers and consumers is improved by integrating producers and consumers. Optimization can subsequently be performed over the combination to produce synergistic results.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 11, 2007
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: John J. Duffy, Henricus Johannes Maria Meijer
  • Patent number: 8346739
    Abstract: Techniques for storing electronic documents include defining multiple logical storage locations, with each logical storage location corresponding to a respective first set of data parameters, and storing electronic documents in the logical storage locations. Each electronic document is stored in a logical storage location having a particular corresponding first set of data parameters. The particular corresponding first set of data parameters is associated with the electronic document, and the electronic document is indexed within the logical storage location based on a second set of data parameters.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 27, 2004
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: Affiliated Computer Services, Inc.
    Inventors: Kash Hatton, Lance P. King
  • Patent number: 8335790
    Abstract: The invention relates to a device (1) for transmitting to a user system (3) geographical data that is stored, using a unit-surface sorting, in the database (4) of a provider system (2).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 4, 2008
    Date of Patent: December 18, 2012
    Assignee: Airbus Operations (SAS)
    Inventors: Thomas Sauvalle, Eric Peyrucain, André Bourdais
  • Patent number: 8321470
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and articles of manufacture for indexing annotations made for a variety of different type (i.e., heterogeneous) data objects are provided. A set of parameters uniquely identifying an annotated data object may be converted to an index comprising a set of index values, each corresponding to a column in a homogeneous index table. In order to accommodate the indexing of heterogeneous data objects, a mapping may be provided for each different type (or classification) of data object that may be annotated, that defines how the identifying parameters of that type will be mapped to the columns of the homogeneous index table.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 20, 2003
    Date of Patent: November 27, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Brian J. Cragun, Julia E. Rice, Peter M. Schwarz, William C. Swope, Hoa T. Tran
  • Patent number: 8315989
    Abstract: A method is disclosed for checking the integrity of a database through a test of database integrity information provided in the database and integrity information provided external to the database. The integrity information may be provided in a configuration file.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 9, 2011
    Date of Patent: November 20, 2012
    Assignee: Roche Diagnostics Operations, Inc.
    Inventors: Igor Gejdos, Lawrence G. Yarian, II, Keith E. Bernard, Morris J. Young, Christopher R. Baker
  • Patent number: 8301655
    Abstract: A wireless sensing system and a method thereof are provided. The wireless sensing system includes: a data processing center; and a first sensor module for processing a first source data into a first dynamic counting sketch data structure. The first dynamic counting sketch data structure has a bit length determined based on the first source data. The data processing center estimates the first source data based on the first dynamic counting sketch data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignees: Industrial Technology Research Institute, National Chengchi University
    Inventors: Yao-Chung Fan, Arbee L. P. Chen, Guan-Rong Lin, Lun-Chia Kuo
  • Patent number: 8301585
    Abstract: A system includes reception of metadata associated with one or more measures, determination of a compatibility of the two or more measures based on the metadata, and determination of a first score associated with a first visualization based on the compatibility. Some aspects include determination of a second score associated with a second visualization based on the compatibility, comparison of the first score and the second score, and recommendation of one of the first visualization or the second visualization based on the comparison.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 2009
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Business Objects Software Limited
    Inventors: Nicolas Mourey, Aurélien Theraud
  • Patent number: 8280841
    Abstract: Stage determination apparatus including storage and processor includes: bibliographic database integrating heterogeneous resources; feature-set creation module calculating feature values of predefined features by searching the bibliographic database, and creating feature-set of each technology using the feature values, for technologies on technology lifecycle; answer-feature-set creation module calculating common feature value of feature sets of technologies belonging to the same stage in the technology lifecycle and creating answer-feature-set of each stage; stage determination module that, if technology is inputted, acquires feature values and creates feature-set for predefined features by searching the bibliographic database for the technology, compares corresponding feature value in the feature-set of the technology with feature value according to feature selection flow in previous decision tree according to the feature selection flow, and determines a stage having feature value finally selected according
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 19, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 2, 2012
    Assignee: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information
    Inventors: Han Min Jung, Won Kyung Sung, Pyung Kim, Mi Kyung Lee, Seung Woo Lee, Dong Min Seo
  • Patent number: 8275795
    Abstract: Techniques for implicitly extending an object model, even those that do not provide an extension mechanism, in a manner that is transparent, independent, and non-disruptive to the model itself. An “extension” is preferably created for each object to be extended, and comprises a reference to the object and contains an “extension object” that specifies the particular extensions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 1, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 25, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Sebastian Carbajales, Vladimir Klicnik, Lok Tin Loi
  • Patent number: 8271457
    Abstract: A system and method for automated database management are provided. Statistics relating to operation of a database may be collected, wherein the database comprises one or more database objects. Characteristics of the database objects may be determined, either automatically or by user intervention, using the collected statistics, one or more policies, and/or one or more definitions. The policies and definitions may be defaults or may be customized by a user. Actions to be performed on the database objects may be determined, either automatically or by user intervention, based on the characteristics of the database objects. A schedule for performing the actions on the database objects may be automatically determined. The actions may be performed on the database objects based on the schedule. The actions on the database objects may be confirmed. The results of the actions on the database objects may be analyzed or monitored. Policies and/or definitions may be reconfigured based on the results.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 21, 2001
    Date of Patent: September 18, 2012
    Assignee: BMC Software, Inc.
    Inventors: Melody Vos, Jeff Slavin
  • Patent number: 8250053
    Abstract: A method, system, and medium are provided for enhancing a search result snippet that is associated with a URL. Potentially descriptive terms of the URL are identified by reconciling multiple sources of terms related to the URL. One aspect includes comparing search terms of historically relevant queries to anchor text for the URL. The search result snippet might be intelligently enhanced by causing common terms to be visibly distinguished when the snippet is displayed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 24, 2009
    Date of Patent: August 21, 2012
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Nicholas Eric Craswell, Nitin Agrawal, Amir J. Padovitz, Song Zhou
  • Patent number: 8250073
    Abstract: Systems and techniques to prepare and present content. In general, in one implementation, a technique includes receiving information identifying a first streaming content element describing a first scope of material, receiving information identifying a second streaming content element describing a second scope of material, and describing a presentation including the first streaming content element and the second streaming content element in a parent/child relationship. The second scope of material can be more detailed than the first scope and included in the first scope.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2003
    Date of Patent: August 21, 2012
    Assignee: University of Southern California
    Inventor: Wee Ling Wong
  • Patent number: 8244743
    Abstract: Aspects of the invention provide a service for data management and integration across a wide range of applications. Clustered computers may be arranged in a cloud-type configuration for storing and handling large amounts of user data under the control of a front-end management server. Communities of distributed users may collaborate on the data across multiple enterprises. Very large tabular data files are uploaded to the storage facilities. The data files are maintained as tables, and a composite table of related information is created and maintained in response to user queries. Different ways of visualizing the data are provided. Depending on the amount of information that can be displayed, features in a spatial index may the thinned for presentation. Spatial and structured queries are processing and results are intersected to obtain information for display.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 8, 2010
    Date of Patent: August 14, 2012
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Hector Gonzalez, Jayant Madhavan, Andrin von Richenberg, Anno Langen, Alon Halevy
  • Patent number: 8239380
    Abstract: The present invention provides systems and methods that employ statistical filtering and ranking techniques to improve content search engine search results by tuning a general-purpose search engine for an entry point for a group of users. The filter can be manually and/or automatically configured via providing training sets of relevant and non-relevant data. For example, a relevant set of data comprising web pages associated with a desired search context for the group utilizing the entry point can be employed. In addition, a non-relevant set of data comprising random and unrelated documents can be employed. The learned filter can then be employed to compare a returned result with the known relevant and the known non-relevant data sets to determine whether the result is relevant to the user for the entry point, and the degree of relevance. The results can then be presented to the user based on the relevance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 20, 2003
    Date of Patent: August 7, 2012
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventor: Eric D. Brill
  • Patent number: 8234285
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for determining similarity measures for objects in a dataset that include contextual associations of the objects with contexts. In one aspect, a method includes calculating a similarity measure for any two objects that include a common feature f based, in part, on the likelihood that the two object representations in the dataset that both include f will we associated with distinct contexts, and the likelihood that the two objects in the dataset that both include f will be associated with the same context.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 21, 2009
    Date of Patent: July 31, 2012
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventor: William W. Cohen
  • Patent number: 8224802
    Abstract: A method and a system for providing snippets of source documents of an answer to a fact query are disclosed. Snippets of source documents may be provided in response to a user request for the source documents from which the fact answer to a fact query was extracted. The snippets include the terms of the fact query and terms of the answer. The snippets may be displayed along with Uniform Resource Locators (URL's) of the source documents.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 9, 2011
    Date of Patent: July 17, 2012
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventor: Andrew William Hogue
  • Patent number: 8224779
    Abstract: In order to prevent leakage of prescribed information (such as highly confidential information, for example) stored in a data management apparatus via a storage device external to such data management apparatus, when the data management apparatus carries out processing to back up the data stored therein to the external storage device, the data management apparatus prohibits backup of prescribed designated information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 9, 2004
    Date of Patent: July 17, 2012
    Assignee: Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Shoji Imaizumi, Hiroshi Iwamoto, Masaaki Saka, Eiichi Yoshida, Hideki Hino
  • Patent number: 8224872
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and articles of manufacture for accessing data stored in multiple data sources. Such methods employ an automated software agent to maintain a collection of data sources available for querying. The data sources may all reside within a single local network or may be distributed throughout multiple locations. Generally, the automated software agent searches a given domain for additional data sources according to a defined set of selection criteria. After discovering an additional data source, the automated software agent configures a query application to reflect the availability the additional data source. Further, the automated software agent may periodically evaluate the collection of data sources against the selection criteria and remove those that are either no longer available or no longer satisfy the selection criteria.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 25, 2004
    Date of Patent: July 17, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Richard D. Dettinger, Daniel P. Kolz, Richard J. Stevens, Jeffrey W. Tenner
  • Patent number: 8219527
    Abstract: According to one embodiment, a file processing apparatus includes an acquisition module, a change module, an association storage module, a receiver, a creator, a call module, a determination module, a file determination module, and an output module. The acquisition module acquires a first file having a first file name. The change module changes the first file name to a second file name. The association storage module stores the file names. The receiver receives a selection of the first file name. The creator creates a second file assigned the first file name. The call module calls an application capable of editing the second file. The determination module determines whether the name of the second file can be changed. When the file name can be changed, the file determination module determines whether a difference exists between the first and second files. When a difference exists, the output module outputs the second file.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 2011
    Date of Patent: July 10, 2012
    Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
    Inventor: Keijiro Yano
  • Patent number: 8219596
    Abstract: In one embodiment the present invention includes a computer-implemented method of improving performance of schema matching. The method includes storing a matching topology that maps a first data structure to a second data structure. The method further includes identifying a first portion of the matching topology that is a candidate for improvement as determined according to an incidence graph. The method further includes rewriting the first portion of the matching topology with a second portion according to the incidence graph.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2010
    Date of Patent: July 10, 2012
    Assignee: Sap AG
    Inventor: Eric Peukert