Patents by Inventor Alexander R. Ohlson

Alexander R. Ohlson 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).

  • Method, apparatus and computer program product for locking interrelated data structures in a multi-threaded computing environment
    Patent number: 6594683
    Abstract: Apparatus, methods, and computer program products are disclosed that improve the performance of multi-threaded computer applications that use objects (within an object collection) which require exclusive thread access. The invention monitors interrelationships between the objects in the object collection and provides mechanisms to lock the minimal set of these objects for the exclusive thread access. When these objects are locked, independent or unrelated objects are left unlocked and can, in turn, be locked by other threads. Because a minimal set of objects are locked other threads that access the object collection are less likely to be blocked by the lock. Thus, these other threads are more likely to be able to simultaneously access objects in the object collection.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 16, 1999
    Date of Patent: July 15, 2003
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: John L. Furlani, Alexander R. Ohlson
  • Method, apparatus and computer program product for locking interrelated data structures in a multi-threaded computing environment
    Patent number: 5995998
    Abstract: Apparatus, methods, and computer program products are disclosed that improve the performance of multi-threaded computer applications that use objects (within an object collection) which require exclusive thread access. The invention monitors interrelationships between the objects in the object collection and provides mechanisms to lock the minimal set of these objects for the exclusive thread access. When these objects are locked, independent or unrelated objects are left unlocked and can, in turn, be locked by other threads. Because a minimal set of objects are locked other threads that access the object collection are less likely to be blocked by the lock. Thus, these other threads are more likely to be able to simultaneously access objects in the object collection.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 23, 1998
    Date of Patent: November 30, 1999
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: John L. Furlani, Alexander R. Ohlson