Patents by Inventor Albert Maier

Albert Maier has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 10290007
    Abstract: The present disclosure details a method and system used for turning human participants who control avatars in a virtual world setting into real life marketing leads. In one embodiment, a virtual location is presented within a virtual world to facilitate interaction with an avatar. The avatar is identified within a master data management system, and a profile of the human behind the avatar is created or retrieved. To encourage the human user to provide real-world information through the avatar within the virtual world, an incentive is offered and awarded as necessary. The real-world information about the human user, such as address or demographic information about the human user is collected and stored in the profile, and eventually synchronized with a CRM system. As appropriate, the data collected and compiled in the CRM system may be used to launch marketing campaigns.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 22, 2009
    Date of Patent: May 14, 2019
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Albert Maier, Dirk Nowak, Martin Oberhofer, Thomas Schwarz, Baxter R. Yazbek
  • Publication number: 20190130027
    Abstract: The invention relates to a computer-implemented method for classifying a set of data values. For each of the data values of the set of data values, a set of one or more terms associated with the respective data value is determined using one or more first knowledge bases. A set of common terms is determined. The set of common terms comprises terms present in more than one of the sets of terms. For each of the common terms, a number of hits for a lookup query against one or more second knowledge data bases is determined. One or more common terms of the set of common terms with the smallest number of hits are determined and a result is returned. The result comprises the one or more common terms with the smallest number of hits as one or more candidate classes for classifying the set of data values.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 2, 2017
    Publication date: May 2, 2019
    Inventors: ALBERT MAIER, MARTIN OBERHOFER, YANNICK SAILLET
  • Patent number: 10169418
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer program products for deriving a multi-pass matching algorithm for data de-duplication are provided herein. A method includes identifying multiple passes across multiple databases using a set of one or more blocking columns derived from a set of trained input data; identifying, in each of the multiple passes, one or more columns across the multiple databases that match one or more of the blocking columns; selecting a given pass from the multiple passes, wherein said given pass comprises a maximum number of matching columns within the multiple passes; determining, for the given pass, data that conform to the given pass comprising (i) a set of matching columns, (ii) one or more matching types and (iii) one or more weights; and determining one or more subsequent passes across the multiple databases iteratively by removing the data that conform to the given pass.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2019
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Hima P. Karanam, Albert Maier, Marvin Mendelssohn, Heather Stimpson, Dan Dan Zheng
  • Publication number: 20180349184
    Abstract: The invention provides for a method for processing a plurality of data sets (105; 106; 108; 110-113; DB1; DB2) in a data repository (104) for storing at least unstructured data, the method comprising: —providing (302) a set of agents (150-168), each agent being operable to trigger the processing of one or more of the data sets, the execution of each of said agents being automatically triggered in case one or more conditions assigned to said agent are met, at least one of the conditions relating to the existence, structure, content and/or annotations of the data set whose processing can be triggered by said agent; —executing (304) a first one of the agents; —updating (306) the annotations (115) of the first data set by the first agent; and —executing (308) a second one of the agents, said execution being triggered by the updated annotations of the first data set meeting the conditions of the second agent, thereby triggering a further updating of the annotations of the first data set.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 14, 2018
    Publication date: December 6, 2018
    Inventors: Albert Maier, Yannick Saillet, Harald C. Smith, Daniel C. Wolfson
  • Patent number: 10013439
    Abstract: During migration of data from at least one data source to a target system, data quality is determined by obtaining metadata associated with the target system, automatically generating instantiated rules for assessing a quality of data to be loaded from the at least one data source into the target system, where the instantiated rules are dependent upon the obtained metadata associated with the target system, and applying a quality analysis based upon the instantiated rules to the data to be loaded into the target system. The quality analysis provides an indication of a level of compliance of the data with requirements of the target system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 27, 2011
    Date of Patent: July 3, 2018
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Anja Gruenheid, Albert Maier, Martin Oberhofer, Thomas Schwarz, Manfred Vodegel
  • Patent number: 10002193
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention provide systems, methods, and computer program products for processing data in an extract, transform, and load system. Embodiments of the present invention provide protective enhancements to be applied to data during extract-transform-load operations, including protections that can prevent unauthorized access and/or modifications to data stored on an intermediate computer system. Embodiments of the present invention can afford users with the ability to modify the protective enhancements and provide users with transformation operations compatible with the protective enhancements during extract-transform-load operations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 22, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 19, 2018
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Stevan Antic, Albert Maier, Oliver Suhre
  • Patent number: 9922106
    Abstract: The invention provides for checking data quality of data of an application program by a data quality management system. At least one of a plurality of jobs are executed for evaluating the data for compliance with one or more quality criteria. The runtime behavior of the at least one executed job is monitored to determine a current runtime behavior of the executed job. The monitored job is reclassified by reallocating the job to a job set representing the determined current runtime behavior.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 12, 2016
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2018
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Mike Grasselt, Albert Maier
  • Patent number: 9852164
    Abstract: Task patterns may exist in completed tasks within a task handling system. A task pattern may comprise task data and metadata and an action that the task handling system uses to complete the task. A task pattern may be identified and compared with task patterns in a database. If the identified task pattern matches a task in the database, a task pattern count for the task in the database can be incremented. If this incrementing results in the task pattern count exceeding a threshold, then the system can search for and identify other active tasks that match the task pattern. The appropriate action for the task pattern can be applied to each of the matched active tasks and each of the active tasks can then be closed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 10, 2015
    Date of Patent: December 26, 2017
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Alexander T. Bentley, Jonathan Limburn, Albert Maier, Scott Schumacher
  • Patent number: 9852166
    Abstract: Task patterns may exist in completed tasks within a task handling system. A task pattern may comprise task data and metadata and an action that the task handling system uses to complete the task. A task pattern may be identified and compared with task patterns in a database. If the identified task pattern matches a task in the database, a task pattern count for the task in the database can be incremented. If this incrementing results in the task pattern count exceeding a threshold, then the system can search for and identify other active tasks that match the task pattern. The appropriate action for the task pattern can be applied to each of the matched active tasks and each of the active tasks can then be closed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 26, 2016
    Date of Patent: December 26, 2017
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Alexander T. Bentley, Jonathan Limburn, Albert Maier, Scott Schumacher
  • Publication number: 20170351758
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention provide systems, methods, and computer program products for processing data in an extract, transform, and load system. Embodiments of the present invention provide protective enhancements to be applied to data during extract-transform-load operations, including protections that can prevent unauthorized access and/or modifications to data stored on an intermediate computer system. Embodiments of the present invention can afford users with the ability to modify the protective enhancements and provide users with transformation operations compatible with the protective enhancements during extract-transform-load operations.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 22, 2017
    Publication date: December 7, 2017
    Inventors: Stevan Antic, Albert Maier, Oliver Suhre
  • Patent number: 9800557
    Abstract: Embodiments relate to operating a data processing system. An aspect includes receiving a request for data storage by an application server, said request comprising restricted-access data. Another aspect includes processing the request in the first application server thereby extracting said restricted-access data from the request. Another aspect includes encrypting said restricted-access data with a cryptographic key associated with said privacy regime to a cipher representation. Another aspect includes defining a masking rule relative to the field designated for storage of the cipher representation, the masking rule defining a set of privacy regimes applicable to processing of the restricted-access data. Another aspect includes forwarding the cipher representation and the masking rule to the shared database by a database client.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 24, 2017
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Albert Maier, Volker Seemann, Johannes Schuetzner
  • Patent number: 9760633
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention provide, systems, methods, and computer program products for processing data in an extract, transform, and load system. Embodiments of the present invention provide protective enhancements to be applied to data during extract-transform-load operations, including protections that can prevent unauthorized access and/or modifications to data stored on an intermediate computer system. Embodiments of the present invention can afford users with the ability to modify the protective enhancements and provide users with transformation operations compatible with the protective enhancements during extract-transform-load operations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 3, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 12, 2017
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Stevan Antic, Albert Maier, Oliver Suhre
  • Patent number: 9754027
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention provide, systems, methods, and computer program products for processing data in an extract, transform, and load system. Embodiments of the present invention provide protective enhancements to be applied to data during extract-transform-load operations, including protections that can prevent unauthorized access and/or modifications to data stored on an intermediate computer system. Embodiments of the present invention can afford users with the ability to modify the protective enhancements and provide users with transformation operations compatible with the protective enhancements during extract-transform-load operations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 12, 2014
    Date of Patent: September 5, 2017
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Stevan Antic, Albert Maier, Oliver Suhre
  • Publication number: 20170242878
    Abstract: A method, computer program product and system for data sampling in a storage system. The storage system includes a dataset comprising records and a buffer. The dataset is scanned record-by-record to determine whether the current record belongs to a random sample. If so, then the current record may be added to a first set of records. Otherwise, at least one storage score may be calculated or determined for the current record using attribute values of the current record. Next, it may be determined whether the buffer includes available size for storing the current record. In case the buffer comprises the available size, the current record may be stored in the buffer. Otherwise, at least part of the buffer may be free up. A subsample of the dataset may be provided as a result of merging the first set of records and at least part of the buffered records.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 8, 2017
    Publication date: August 24, 2017
    Inventors: Albert Maier, Yannick Saillet, Damir Spisic
  • Publication number: 20170242877
    Abstract: A method, computer program product and system for data sampling in a storage system. The storage system includes a dataset comprising records and a buffer. The dataset is scanned record-by-record to determine whether the current record belongs to a random sample. If so, then the current record may be added to a first set of records. Otherwise, at least one storage score may be calculated or determined for the current record using attribute values of the current record. Next, it may be determined whether the buffer includes available size for storing the current record. In case the buffer comprises the available size, the current record may be stored in the buffer. Otherwise, at least part of the buffer may be free up. A subsample of the dataset may be provided as a result of merging the first set of records and at least part of the buffered records.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 18, 2016
    Publication date: August 24, 2017
    Inventors: Albert Maier, Yannick Saillet, Damir Spisic
  • Patent number: 9697066
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a method for processing data quality exceptions in a data processing system, the data processing system having access to one or more data sources and having access to multiple technical support systems, the multiple technical support systems having one or more predefined technical tasks. The method comprises providing a predefined grouping rule for assigning data quality exceptions to exception groups, and associating each exception group using at least one technical task; receiving a first description of at least a first data quality exception in a data set of the first data source; using the grouping rule for assigning the first data quality exception to at least a first exception group using the first description, and for associating the first exception group with a first technical support system; routing by the exception engine at least part of the first description to the first technical support system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 26, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 4, 2017
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Mike Grasselt, Albert Maier, Sergej Schuetz, Thomas Schwarz
  • Publication number: 20170139746
    Abstract: The invention provides for a method for processing a plurality of data sets (105; 106; 108; 110-113; DB1; DB2) in a data repository (104) for storing at least unstructured data, the method comprising:—providing (302) a set of agents (150-168), each agent being operable to trigger the processing of one or more of the data sets, the exe-cution of each of said agents being automatically triggered in case one or more conditions assigned to said agent are met, at least one of the conditions relating to the existence, structure, content and/or annotations of the data set whose processing can be triggered by said agent;—executing (304) a first one of the agents;—updating (306) the annotations (115) of the first data set by the first agent; and—executing (308) a second one of the agents, said execution being triggered by the updated annotations of the first data set meeting the conditions of the second agent, thereby triggering a further up-dating of the annotations of the first data set.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 18, 2015
    Publication date: May 18, 2017
    Inventors: Albert Maier, Yannick Saillet, Harald C. Smith, Daniel C. Wolfson
  • Patent number: 9607021
    Abstract: Data to be loaded into a target system includes entities having corresponding unique primary data value and secondary data values. The secondary data values have associated foreign key relationships, which links the secondary data value to the primary data value of another entity. In loading the data, the entities are split into insertion leaf groups by execution of an iteration process, each iteration involving generation of a respective set of insertion leaf groups containing entities whose secondary data values have no foreign key relationships or only foreign key relationships with the primary data values of entities of the insertion leaf groups generated during any prior iteration. The iteration process is executed until there are no such entities are left. A sequence of generation of the sets of insertion leaf groups is recorded, and the sets of insertion leaf groups are consecutively loaded into the target system according to the sequence.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 9, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 28, 2017
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Peter Gerstl, Mike Grasselt, Albert Maier, Thomas Schwarz, Oliver Suhre
  • Publication number: 20170075724
    Abstract: Task patterns may exist in completed tasks within a task handling system. A task pattern may comprise task data and metadata and an action that the task handling system uses to complete the task. A task pattern may be identified and compared with task patterns in a database. If the identified task pattern matches a task in the database, a task pattern count for the task in the database can be incremented. If this incrementing results in the task pattern count exceeding a threshold, then the system can search for and identify other active tasks that match the task pattern. The appropriate action for the task pattern can be applied to each of the matched active tasks and each of the active tasks can then be closed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 10, 2015
    Publication date: March 16, 2017
    Inventors: Alexander T. Bentley, Jonathan Limburn, Albert Maier, Scott Schumacher
  • Publication number: 20170075725
    Abstract: Task patterns may exist in completed tasks within a task handling system. A task pattern may comprise task data and metadata and an action that the task handling system uses to complete the task. A task pattern may be identified and compared with task patterns in a database. If the identified task pattern matches a task in the database, a task pattern count for the task in the database can be incremented. If this incrementing results in the task pattern count exceeding a threshold, then the system can search for and identify other active tasks that match the task pattern. The appropriate action for the task pattern can be applied to each of the matched active tasks and each of the active tasks can then be closed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 26, 2016
    Publication date: March 16, 2017
    Inventors: Alexander T. Bentley, Jonathan Limburn, Albert Maier, Scott Schumacher