Patents by Inventor Benjamin C. Constable

Benjamin C. Constable 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: 7716574
    Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for providing direct style sheet editing. The disclosed systems and methods may include selecting a first target rule for a next formatting operation. The selected first target rule may include a modified property and may be selected from a plurality of target rules. Furthermore, the disclosed systems and methods may include enabling property changes to occur in a most specific target rule in the plurality of target rules. The most specific target rule may contain the modified property. Moreover, the disclosed systems and methods may include providing a highlighting mechanism configured to allow a user to see which regions of a page are to be affected by the selected first target rule.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 9, 2005
    Date of Patent: May 11, 2010
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Daniel P. Chartier, Benjamin C. Constable, Sam Spencer, Hessan Tchaitchian
  • Patent number: 7337393
    Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for providing an editable visual formatting model. The disclosed systems and methods may include providing visual formatting properties. The visual formatting properties may comprise an outer-most polygon corresponding to a container of a selected element, a middle polygon corresponding to a margin of the selected element, and an inner-most polygon corresponding to a padding of the selected element. Furthermore, the disclosed systems and methods may include providing interactive handles configured to provide design view editing of the visual formatting properties.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 9, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 26, 2008
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Daniel P. Chartier, Benjamin C. Constable, Sam Spencer