Patents by Inventor Andrew Ian Hickson

Andrew Ian Hickson 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: 9626235
    Abstract: A method of managing an asynchronous messaging queue with a client computer in an asynchronous messaging system, where the client computer is programmed to store an manage the asynchronous messaging queue, includes receiving a reactive message in the asynchronous messaging queue, the reactive message including an identification of a previously initiated message and an action to be performed on the previously initiated message; and upon determining that the previously initiated message has already been received in the asynchronous messaging queue, performing the action on the previously initiated message with the client computer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2012
    Date of Patent: April 18, 2017
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: George Meldrum Blue, Nigel Goddard, Martin James Gompertz, Andrew Ian Hickson, Gary Patrick Longerstaey, Philip Graham Willoughby
  • Patent number: 8732228
    Abstract: Documents are published in a publish subscribe data processing system. A first document to be published may have an associated topic. The first document is retained as a retained document. A second document to be published is retained as the retained document in response to receiving the second document before a predetermined time interval has passed. A copy of the second document is sent to a subscriber of the topic. A copy of the retained document is sent to the subscriber of the topic in response to a determination that the predetermined time interval has passed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 17, 2005
    Date of Patent: May 20, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Andrew Stephen Marcus Edwards, Andrew Ian Hickson, Martin Robert Holder, Trevor Lobban
  • Patent number: 8631418
    Abstract: A system and method for messaging in which, when a connection to a queue manager (220) is established, the queue manager allocates a Connection Identifier from the same name space (300) as Message Identifiers and returns this information (400) to the user. The user can then use this Connection Identifier as a Correlation Identifier, safe in the knowledge that it will not clash with any system generated Message Identifier or Correlation Identifier. A secondary benefit to this allocation scheme is that if a shared reply queue suffers from a build-up of messages then the Correlation Identifier in those messages can be used to identify the application expected to receive those messages.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 8, 2005
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Andrew Ian Hickson, Brian Clive Homewood, Tristram Terence Reilly
  • Patent number: 8606833
    Abstract: A method and system for combined commit transaction request and subsequent operation request for committing the operations of a synchronized transaction by one or more applications (301, 4001, 501) on a resource manager (302, 402, 502). The method comprises: receiving a combined request (310, 410, 510) for an operation and a request to commit any outstanding synchronized transaction; committing the outstanding transaction (311, 414, 512); and processing (313, 413, 517) the requested operation outside the outstanding transaction. For example, in an asynchronous messaging process, the combined request specifies an option in a get operation request to commit any outstanding units of work prior to carrying out the get operation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 2005
    Date of Patent: December 10, 2013
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Andrew Ian Hickson
  • Publication number: 20120272248
    Abstract: A method of managing an asynchronous messaging queue with a client computer in an asynchronous messaging system, where the client computer is programmed to store an manage the asynchronous messaging queue, includes receiving a reactive message in the asynchronous messaging queue, the reactive message including an identification of a previously initiated message and an action to be performed on the previously initiated message; and upon determining that the previously initiated message has already been received in the asynchronous messaging queue, performing the action on the previously initiated message with the client computer.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 29, 2012
    Publication date: October 25, 2012
    Applicant: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: George Meldrum Blue, Nigel Goddard, Martin James Gompertz, Andrew Ian Hickson, Gary Patrick Longerstaey, Philip Graham Willoughby
  • Patent number: 8276160
    Abstract: Managing an asynchronous messaging queue with a client computer in an asynchronous messaging system, where the client computer is programmed to store an manage the asynchronous messaging queue, includes receiving a reactive message in the asynchronous messaging queue, the reactive message including an identification of a referenced message and an action to be performed on the referenced message; and performing the action on the previously initiated message with the client computer if the referenced message is present in the asynchronous messaging queue.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 8, 2009
    Date of Patent: September 25, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: George Meldrum Blue, Nigel Goddard, Martin James Gompertz, Andrew Ian Hickson, Gary Patrick Longerstaey, Philip Graham Willoughby
  • Patent number: 8082554
    Abstract: The present invention provides methods, apparatus and computer programs for event-based control of subscription matching in a publish/subscribe communications environment. Activation and/or deactivation events are associated with subscriptions at a publish/subscribe broker and are used to control when a subscription is active. The broker is responsive to temporally-unpredictable events, such as receipt of a published message on a predefined activation topic, to activate subscription matching for messages that are subsequently received or which have been received earlier and retained at the broker. Conventional subscription matching can be avoided for a registered subscription while that subscription is inactive, and subscribers are not required to explicitly and repeatedly subscribe and unsubscribe.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2007
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Ian Gerald Craggs, Anthony Alan Garrard, Ian Robert Harwood, Andrew Ian Hickson, David Locke, Andrew David Reynolds, Andrew James Stanford-Clark, Jane Louise Stockdill
  • Patent number: 7757119
    Abstract: A method and system of inherited transactions in an asynchronous messaging are provided. A producer requests a message put operation in a transaction. A consumer carries out a get operation with the option to inherit the transaction of the put operation. In an inherited transaction, the consumer's transaction will not commit until the transaction it has inherited from commits. Work performed in the producer's transaction is visible to the consumer, but work performed in the consumer's transaction is not visible to the producer preserving asynchronous messaging semantics. A transaction hierarchy results and only the net effect of transaction hierarchy is hardened to non-volatile storage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 7, 2006
    Date of Patent: July 13, 2010
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Andrew Ian Hickson
  • Publication number: 20100095308
    Abstract: Managing an asynchronous messaging queue with a client computer in an asynchronous messaging system, where the client computer is programmed to store an manage the asynchronous messaging queue, includes receiving a reactive message in the asynchronous messaging queue, the reactive message including an identification of a referenced message and an action to be performed on the referenced message; and performing the action on the previously initiated message with the client computer if the referenced message is present in the asynchronous messaging queue.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 8, 2009
    Publication date: April 15, 2010
    Applicant: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: George Meldrum Blue, Nigel Goddard, Martin James Gompertz, Andrew Ian Hickson, Gary Patrick Longerstaey, Philip Graham Willoughby
  • Patent number: 7487272
    Abstract: A method for deleting expired items in a queue data structure, the queue data structure comprising a sequential list of ordered data items including a queue head at one end of the sequential list and a queue tail at another end of the sequential list, wherein each data item includes an expiry time, the method comprising: generating a maximum interval value corresponding to a maximum time interval between an expiry time of a first item in the queue and an expiry time of a second item in the queue, wherein the second item is nearer the queue head than the first item; sequentially scanning the list of ordered items from the queue head; responsive to a determination that a scanned item is expired, deleting the scanned item; responsive to a determination that a scanned item will not expire for a time interval greater than the maximum interval value, terminating scanning of the list of ordered items.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 17, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Andrew Ian Hickson, David John McCann
  • Publication number: 20080134202
    Abstract: The present invention provides methods, apparatus and computer programs for event-based control of subscription matching in a publish/subscribe communications environment. Activation and/or deactivation events are associated with subscriptions at a publish/subscribe broker and are used to control when a subscription is active. The broker is responsive to temporally-unpredictable events, such as receipt of a published message on a predefined activation topic, to activate subscription matching for messages that are subsequently received or which have been received earlier and retained at the broker. Conventional subscription matching can be avoided for a registered subscription while that subscription is inactive, and subscribers are not required to explicitly and repeatedly subscribe and unsubscribe.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 30, 2007
    Publication date: June 5, 2008
    Applicant: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATOIN
    Inventors: Ian Gerald Craggs, Anthony Alan Garrard, Ian Robert Harwood, Andrew Ian Hickson, David Locke, Andrew David Reynolds, Andrew James Stanford-Clark, Jane Louise Stockdill
  • Patent number: 7240349
    Abstract: A method and computer program product is provided for sending a persistent message in a transaction-enabled messaging and queuing system. A message queue manager is responsible for transferring messages from a sender program to a receiving program via a message queue. A message is sent from the sender program to the message queue manager. The message is defined to permit the message queue manager to select whether to treat the message transactionally or non-transactionally.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2002
    Date of Patent: July 3, 2007
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Andrew Ian Hickson, Peter David Niblett, David Ware
  • Patent number: 6792604
    Abstract: Provided are a method, computer program product and data processing apparatus for recovery from interprocess communication failures, the method comprising: in response to an initiator process requesting interprocess communication (IPC) with a responder process via an IPC link, recognizing if the initiator process does not have the expected write control of the IPC link and setting an indicator. A process other than the initiator process checks the indicator (such as after a timeout, or periodically) and, if the indicator has been set, notifies the initiator process to take control. This method avoids potential stalemate situations in which neither the initiator nor the responder process can take control, without reliance on mutex locks for every exchange of data and control.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2000
    Date of Patent: September 14, 2004
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Andrew Ian Hickson, Richard Scott Maxwell, Timothy Steven Raff, David Ware
  • Publication number: 20040088712
    Abstract: Disclosed is a method and computer program product for sending a persistent message in a transaction-enabled messaging and queuing system comprising a message queue manager responsible for transferring messages from a sender program to a receiving program via a message queue. A message is sent from the sender program to the message queue manager, the message being defined so as to permit the message queue manager to select whether to treat the message transactionally or non-transactionally.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 20, 2002
    Publication date: May 6, 2004
    Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Andrew Ian Hickson, Peter David Niblett, David Ware
  • Patent number: 6678802
    Abstract: The invention relates to controlling access by a plurality of concurrently operating processes to a resource. An area of storage is allocated and a pre-determined number of slots defined therein. Responsive to a request by one of the processes for shared access to the resource, a determination is made as to whether to allocate shared access, and if so, the requesting process is allocated shared access upon the acquisition of one of the storage slots. Responsive to a request by one of the processes for exclusive access to the resource, a determination is made as to whether to allocate exclusive access, and if so exclusive access is allocated upon the acquisition of all of the storage slots.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 6, 2001
    Date of Patent: January 13, 2004
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Andrew Ian Hickson
  • Publication number: 20020120819
    Abstract: The invention relates to controlling access by a plurality of concurrently operating processes to a resource. An area of storage is allocated and a pre-determined number of slots defined therein. Responsive to a request by one of the processes for shared access to the resource, a determination is made as to whether to allocate shared access, and if so, the requesting process is allocated shared access upon the acquisition of one of the storage slots. Responsive to a request by one of the processes for exclusive access to the resource, a determination is made as to whether to allocate exclusive access, and if so exclusive access is allocated upon the acquisition of all of the storage slots.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 6, 2001
    Publication date: August 29, 2002
    Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Andrew Ian Hickson