Patents Examined by Robert W. Wilson
  • Patent number: 8665880
    Abstract: This disclosure describes techniques for scheduling distribution of content to a plurality of devices in a communication network, such as a cellular-based wireless network. According to this disclosure, two or more distribution techniques may be used, and scheduling techniques are performed to determine which distribution technique to use for different content. For example, content can be broadcast to all devices on the network (broadcast), multicast within several cells of the network (multi-cell multicast), multicast in a specific cell of the network (single cell multicast), or unicast to one or more specific devices within specific cells of the network (unicast). The scheduling techniques described in this disclosure may improve content distribution by substantially maximizing the number of content requests that are satisfied, particularly when bandwidth is limited.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2007
    Date of Patent: March 4, 2014
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventors: Mehmet Yavuz, Matthew Stuart Grob, Nagesh S. Nandiraju
  • Patent number: 8665898
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for adaptively obtaining bandwidth requests in a broadband wireless communication system. The method and apparatus includes dynamically varying technique combinations enabling a plurality of users to efficiently request bandwidth from a shared base station. A user may “piggyback” a new bandwidth request upon, or set a “poll-me bit” within, presently allocated bandwidth. A base station may poll users, individually or in groups, by allocating unrequested bandwidth for new requests. Polling may respond to a “poll-me bit,” and/or it may be adaptively periodic at a rate based on communication status parameters, such as recent communication activity and connection QoS levels. Group polling permits a possibility of collisions. Polling policies may be established for dynamically varying user groups, or may be determined for each user. Dynamic selection of appropriate polling techniques makes use of efficiency benefits associated with each technique.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 28, 2010
    Date of Patent: March 4, 2014
    Assignee: Wi-Lan, Inc.
    Inventors: Brian Spinar, Kenneth L. Stanwood
  • Patent number: 8351440
    Abstract: An IP address and a MAC address of each of communication devices connected to a plurality of communication ports provided in a switching hub device are associated in an ARP table. Also, priority information representing the communication priority of each communication device is received, and the received priority information is associated with the MAC address of the communication device. When no IP address of a transmission source included in a data packet received at each communication port exists in the ARP table, the IP address and the MAC address of the transmission source are added to the ARP table and priority information is attached to the ARP table.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 19, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2013
    Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
    Inventors: Seigo Sawada, Takumi Iwai, Yoshinari Oshio, Takao Nakamura, Tsuneyuki Takai
  • Patent number: 8325643
    Abstract: The invention pertains to a method for determining a sequence of access (300) to a communications network (100) by a plurality of nodes (101, 102, 103, 5 104, 107) of said communications network (100) in the context of the broadcasting of a data content by a transmitter node (101) to a set of receiver nodes (103, 107, 104, 102), at least one receiver node (102, 104) having to receive said content by means of another receiver node (103, 107), called a relay receiver node.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 12, 2008
    Date of Patent: December 4, 2012
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Lionel Tocze, Patrice Nezou, Alain Caillerie, Pascal Lagrange, Julien Sevin-Renault
  • Patent number: 8249016
    Abstract: Handoff configuration information is provided to a dual mode Access Terminal (AT) operable to communicate both in a Circuit Switched network domain and a IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) network domain. Up-to-date handoff configuration information is transmitted during a registration of the dual mode AT with an IMS network or, alternatively during establishment of a call session of the dual mode AT. An IMS server assigns and sends the handoff configuration information to the dual mode in a response message to a registration request or, alternatively in a request for a call session establishment and in a response message to the request for the call session establishment. The handoff configuration information is used in a call handoff of an ongoing call of the dual mode AT between the CS network and the IMS network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 9, 2007
    Date of Patent: August 21, 2012
    Assignee: Cellco Partnership
    Inventors: Rohit Satish Kalbag, Robert Martin Ephraim
  • Patent number: 8243663
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for adaptively obtaining bandwidth requests in a broadband wireless communication system. The method and apparatus includes dynamically varying technique combinations enabling a plurality of users to efficiently request bandwidth from a shared base station. A user may “piggyback” a new bandwidth request upon, or set a “poll-me bit” within, presently allocated bandwidth. A base station may poll users, individually or in groups, by allocating unrequested bandwidth for new requests. Polling may respond to a “poll-me bit,” and/or it may be adaptively periodic at a rate based on communication status parameters, such as recent communication activity and connection QoS levels Group polling permits a possibility of collisions. Polling policies may be established for dynamically varying user groups, or may be determined for each user. Dynamic selection of appropriate polling techniques makes use of efficiency benefits associated with each technique.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 13, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 14, 2012
    Assignee: Wi-LAN, Inc.
    Inventors: Brian Spinar, Kenneth L. Stanwood
  • Patent number: 8130696
    Abstract: An information signal is spread with a first spreading sequence producing a first spread signal for transmission over a first antenna. The information signal is spread with the first spreading sequence producing a second spread signal for transmission over a second antenna. The second antenna is not the first antenna. The relative position of the information signal and the first spreading sequence is different in the second spread signal than the first spread signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 20, 2005
    Date of Patent: March 6, 2012
    Assignee: InterDigital Technology Corporation
    Inventors: D. Ridgely Bolgiano, Gilbert E. LaVean
  • Patent number: 8121024
    Abstract: A feedback-based adaptive network is described wherein at least a portion of the network elements report operating information relating to network conditions to a centralized data store. The information which is reported to the data store is analyzed by a policy engine, and updated control information may be generated. The updated control information may be fed back to selected network elements to thereby affect operation of the selected elements. In this way, the dynamic and automatic feedback control of network elements is provided. Events relating to changing conditions in the network may also be reported to selected elements. Additionally the adaptive, feedback-based network may include a network quality monitoring system for evaluating performance characteristics or other aspects of the network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 7, 2007
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2012
    Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Shankar Natarajan, Andrew G. Harvey, Hsuan-Chung Lee, Vipin Rawat, Leo Pereira
  • Patent number: 8094680
    Abstract: A method of generating an intermediate format for configuration values of telephony devices. The method includes collecting lists of configuration fields from a plurality of administrable devices; and generating a configuration file format, which includes more configuration fields than supported by any one of the administrable devices, based on the collected lists.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2012
    Assignee: Avaya Inc.
    Inventors: Ronen Ben Chetrit, Itai Ephraim Zilbershtein
  • Patent number: 8059646
    Abstract: A peer-to-peer (P2P) network for providing real time media recommendations is provided. The media recommendations may be song recommendations or video recommendations. Each time a media presentation is played by a peer device, the peer device provides a recommendation identifying the media presentation to other peer devices in the P2P network. A peer device having received recommendations from the other peer devices in the P2P network then programmatically, or automatically, selects a next media presentation to play from the media presentations recently played by the other peer devices and one or more locally stored media presentations. If the selected media presentation is not stored locally by the peer device, the peer device may obtain the selected media presentation from a subscription based service enabling streaming or download of the selected media presentation, an e-commerce service enabling purchase and download of the selected media presentation, or another peer device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 13, 2006
    Date of Patent: November 15, 2011
    Assignee: Napo Enterprises, LLC
    Inventors: Hugh Svendsen, Michael Erickson
  • Patent number: 8050264
    Abstract: A method and system for re-routing a multicast stream is provided. The method for re-routing a multicast stream includes: providing a prior multicast forwarding path corresponding to a first route; establishing a new multicast forwarding path between a downstream router and a second upstream router corresponding to a second route; re-routing a multicast stream from said prior multicast forwarding path to said new multicast forwarding path, wherein said multicast stream utilizes said prior multicast forwarding path until said new multicast forwarding path is operational; and pruning said prior multicast forwarding path when said new multicast forwarding path is operational. Therefore, the multicast stream transmitting will not be interrupted during the switchover process of the multicast forwarding path caused by that a unicast route to a multicast source or a rendezvous point has changed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2007
    Date of Patent: November 1, 2011
    Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Xiaohu Xu
  • Patent number: 7995480
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention are directed to reconfiguring communication routing architecture. A determination may be made that loading on one or more routing entities require adjustment. Adjustment may be required in situations where, for example, the amount of data to convey or the number of clients to service overcome the abilities of the router. In reconfiguring the communication routing architecture, some of the routing responsibility for the heavily loaded routers may be offloaded to neighboring routers and/or clients.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 23, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 9, 2011
    Assignee: Nokia Corporation
    Inventor: Sasu Tarkoma
  • Patent number: 7990895
    Abstract: A system for establishing a direct network connection between a first and a second node over a data-packet-network includes a third network node having connection to the data-packet-network for providing an electronic interface accessible to the first node; a navigation agent directed by the third network node for navigating over the network to the second node to gather information; and at least one machine-readable instruction containing the instruction for directing and implementing the direct network connection. The electronic interface may be a Web page providing bill consolidation and payment services to a client operating the first node and wherein the connection established via the instruction enables transparent login payment of a bill at the second node, which may be a direct billing party interface of the client registered and listed on the Web page.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 21, 2010
    Date of Patent: August 2, 2011
    Assignee: Yodlee.com
    Inventors: Hill Ferguson, Blake Hayward, Ramakrishna Satyavolu
  • Patent number: 7990846
    Abstract: Method and apparatus for provisioning a protection pathway of a link joining a first point in a network and a second point in the network. The method includes the step of determining a shortest path between the first point and the second point in a protection graph, computing a length of said shortest path, determining if said link should be added to the protection graph according to said computed length and setting the shortest path in the protection graph as protection path for said link. The second step of determining includes evaluating the protection graph to determine if there no existing path or an existing path that is longer than a hop limit. Based on this evaluation, the method either adds the link or makes no change to the protection graph.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 30, 2004
    Date of Patent: August 2, 2011
    Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc.
    Inventors: Mansoor Ali Khan Alicherry, Randeep S. Bhatia
  • Patent number: 7990875
    Abstract: A telecommunications system provides mobile internet protocol related communications services to mobile nodes via a plurality of access networks that each include an access gateway, a mobility manager operable to receive link quality messages from the mobile nodes providing an indication of a currently available link quality from an access network with which the mobile node is currently affiliated. The mobility manager is also operable to receive application server messages from the application server for managing the communications service with respect to the communications session level. The mobility manager directs a change of affiliation of a first mobile node between one of a first of the access networks and a second of the access networks to the other of the first and second access networks, or a change of communications session level of the first mobile node.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 2, 2005
    Date of Patent: August 2, 2011
    Assignee: France Telecom
    Inventors: Annelise Massiera, Servane Bonjour, Stéphane Atheo
  • Patent number: 7990889
    Abstract: Systems and methods for managing virtual collaboration systems are disclosed herein. A virtual collaboration system includes a distributor communicatively coupled to a first network and a second network having different network characteristics from the first network, the distributor configured to receive first media streams from at least one first network node, and to transmit the first media streams to at least one second network node; and a management subsystem adapted to dynamically configure a topology of a virtual collaborative event, wherein configuration of the topology includes a determination of media stream connections among the distributor and the at least one first network node based, at least in part, on at least one policy, and wherein the media stream connections establish and maintain virtual relationships among the at least one first network node and the at least one second network node.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 1, 2007
    Date of Patent: August 2, 2011
    Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
    Inventors: Ted Beers, Mike Derocher, Brad Allen, Jon A Brewster, Mark E Gorzynski, Scott Grasley
  • Patent number: 7990953
    Abstract: A distributed VoIP system includes a network and a first switch at a first site coupled to the network. The first switch is configured to provide telephony services to a first communication device. The system also includes a second switch at a second site coupled to the network. The second switch is configured to provide telephony services to a second communication device. The system also includes a spare switch coupled to the network. The spare switch is configured to provide telephony services to the first communication device if the first communication device is unable to register with the first switch, and the spare switch is configured to provide telephony services to the second communication device if the second communication device is unable to register with the second switch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 30, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 2, 2011
    Assignee: Shoretel, Inc.
    Inventors: Andy A. Cheng, Glen K. Okita, Robert R. Burns
  • Patent number: 7986640
    Abstract: A technique efficiently determines acceptable link-based loop free alternates (LFAS) in a computer network. According to the novel technique, a protecting network device configured to protect a link (“protected link”) distinguishes other network devices (e.g., of the same domain as the protecting network device) as either network edge devices (i.e., an end point for external network traffic) or network core devices (i.e., not an end point for external network traffic). The protecting network device may then determine whether a neighboring network device loops toward a network edge device. If not, the protecting network device may determine that the neighboring network device is an acceptable LFA (e.g., for external network traffic). Notably, traffic directed to core devices may still loop, however, this traffic is generally internal (e.g., signaling) traffic, and may not be subject to the same operational constraints (e.g., protection) as external traffic.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 5, 2006
    Date of Patent: July 26, 2011
    Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Stefano B. Previdi, Raffaele Gigantino
  • Patent number: 7986692
    Abstract: A system and method for transmitting call information in a communication system having sites with long link delays. Upon a call being initiated within the communication system, a zone controller determines the participating sites that are to be involved in the call and assigns an IP multicast group address for the call. The zone controller also determines whether any of the participating sites have a long link delay. If any of the participating sites do have a long link delay, the zone controller also assigns an IP unicast address for each such site. The call information is then transmitted both on the IP multicast address as well as on each assigned IP unicast address to ensure that the call is received by each participating site without the loss of call information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 26, 2011
    Assignee: Motorola Solutions, Inc.
    Inventors: Daniel J. McDonald, John W. Maher
  • Patent number: RE42828
    Abstract: Anonymous voice communication between a first station and a second station is facilitated by providing an interface that allows input of a transaction specification from at least one of the first and second stations. A reference code associated with the transaction is generated, there being a defined relationship between the reference code and the address of the second station for voice communication. The reference code is supplied to the first station, and a voice communication request and the reference code are received from the first station. The reference code is used to recover said address and a channel for voice communication is opened between said first and second stations. Voice communication can thereby be established between the first and second stations without providing the address of the second station to the first station. A controlling apparatus providing communication service between two parties over the Internet, without revealing personal or security information between the two parties.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 27, 2008
    Date of Patent: October 11, 2011
    Assignee: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Christina Ying Liu, William Ho Chang