Patents by Inventor Blake Howald

Blake Howald 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: 12015633
    Abstract: Computer implemented methods are provided for facilitating social engineering campaigns. The methods generally include maintaining at least one database that includes metadata for a plurality of fictional personas, metadata for a plurality of potential targets, information for a plurality of social engineering campaigns, such as a plurality of campaign scenarios, and information regarding social engineering successes with respect to at least one fictional persona, at least one potential target, at least one social engineering campaign, or a combination thereof. The method further includes receiving a selection of a campaign scenario from the plurality of campaign scenarios, receiving a selection of at least one of the plurality of potential targets, and selecting at least one of the plurality of fictional personas for use in a social engineering campaign based on an expected effectiveness of the given fictional personas with respect to the selected targets.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 1, 2021
    Date of Patent: June 18, 2024
    Assignee: Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH
    Inventors: Jason Thomas, Zach Seid, Blake Howald, James Tuttle, Spencer Torene, Hannah Lensing, Casey Fallin, Matt Machado, Berk Ekmekci, William Garcia, Nathan Maynes
  • Patent number: 11461555
    Abstract: The present disclosure includes systems, apparatuses, and methods for event identification. In some aspects, a method includes receiving data including text and performing natural language processing on the received data to generate processed data that indicates one or more sentences. The method also includes generating, based on a first keyword set, a second keyword set having more keywords than the first keyword set. The method further includes, for each of the first and second keyword sets: detecting one or more keywords and one or more entities included in the processed data, determining one or more matched pairs based on the detected keywords and entities, and extracting a sentence, such as a single sentence or multiple sentences, from a document based on the one or more sentences indicated by the processed data. The method may also include outputting at least one extracted sentence.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 2, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 4, 2022
    Assignee: Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH
    Inventors: Berk Ekmekci, Eleanor Hagerman, Blake Howald
  • Patent number: 11392875
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a computer-based system for identifying supply chain risks and generating supply chain graphs representing an interconnected network of entities. An industrial graph database application is configured to account for direct and indirect (transitive) supplier risk and importance, based on a weighted set of measures: criticality, replaceability, centrality and distance. A graph-based model serves as an interactive and visual supply chain risk and importance explorer. A supply network is induced from textual data by applying text mining techniques to news stories and used to populate the supply chain/graph database.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 19, 2022
    Assignee: REFINITIV US ORGANIZATION LLC
    Inventors: Lucas Carstens, Jochen L. Leidner, Krzysztof Szymanski, Blake Howald
  • Publication number: 20220070204
    Abstract: Computer implemented methods are provided for facilitating social engineering campaigns. The methods generally include maintaining at least one database that includes metadata for a plurality of fictional personas, metadata for a plurality of potential targets, information for a plurality of social engineering campaigns, such as a plurality of campaign scenarios, and information regarding social engineering successes with respect to at least one fictional persona, at least one potential target, at least one social engineering campaign, or a combination thereof. The method further includes receiving a selection of a campaign scenario from the plurality of campaign scenarios, receiving a selection of at least one of the plurality of potential targets, and selecting at least one of the plurality of fictional personas for use in a social engineering campaign based on an expected effectiveness of the given fictional personas with respect to the selected targets.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 1, 2021
    Publication date: March 3, 2022
    Inventors: Jason Thomas, Zach Seid, Blake Howald, James Tuttle, Spencer Torene, Hannah Lensing, Casey Fallin, Matt Machado, Berk Ekmekci, William Garcia, Nathan Maynes
  • Patent number: 11182539
    Abstract: In some aspects, a method includes extracting sentences from data corresponding to documents. Each extracted sentence includes at least one matched pair (a keyword from a first or second keyword set and an entity from an entity set). The method includes ordering the plurality of extracted sentences based on a distance between a respective keyword and a respective entity in each extracted sentence. The method includes identifying a first type and a second type of extracted sentences from the ordered plurality of extracted sentences. Sentences having the first type include keywords of the first keyword set. Sentences having the second type include keywords of the second keyword set. The method includes generating an extracted summary including at least one sentence having the first type and at least one sentence having the second type, intermixed based on a predetermined order rule set. The method includes outputting the extracted summary.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 14, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 23, 2021
    Assignee: Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH
    Inventors: Berk Ekmekci, Eleanor Hagerman, Blake Howald
  • Publication number: 20200242299
    Abstract: In some aspects, a method includes extracting sentences from data corresponding to documents. Each extracted sentence includes at least one matched pair (a keyword from a first or second keyword set and an entity from an entity set). The method includes ordering the plurality of extracted sentences based on a distance between a respective keyword and a respective entity in each extracted sentence. The method includes identifying a first type and a second type of extracted sentences from the ordered plurality of extracted sentences. Sentences having the first type include keywords of the first keyword set. Sentences having the second type include keywords of the second keyword set. The method includes generating an extracted summary including at least one sentence having the first type and at least one sentence having the second type, intermixed based on a predetermined order rule set. The method includes outputting the extracted summary.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 14, 2020
    Publication date: July 30, 2020
    Inventors: Berk Ekmekci, Eleanor Hagerman, Blake Howald
  • Publication number: 20200184151
    Abstract: The present disclosure includes systems, apparatuses, and methods for event identification. In some aspects, a method includes receiving data including text and performing natural language processing on the received data to generate processed data that indicates one or more sentences. The method also includes generating, based on a first keyword set, a second keyword set having more keywords than the first keyword set. The method further includes, for each of the first and second keyword sets: detecting one or more keywords and one or more entities included in the processed data, determining one or more matched pairs based on the detected keywords and entities, and extracting a sentence, such as a single sentence or multiple sentences, from a document based on the one or more sentences indicated by the processed data. The method may also include outputting at least one extracted sentence.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 2, 2019
    Publication date: June 11, 2020
    Inventors: Berk Ekmekci, Eleanor Hagerman, Blake Howald
  • Patent number: 10255646
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a system, method and medium for associating portions of advocational documents with portions of tribunal decisions in view of common or similar characteristics that are identified between the associated entities. In addition, the associated advocational document portions are imparted with certain characteristics resulting from such an association, such as inheriting the topic of the associated tribunal decision portion or inheriting general characteristics of the decision such as judge or jurisdiction. This allows for the subsequent retrieval of advocational documents in view of various criteria associated with a decision or portion thereof.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: April 9, 2019
    Inventors: Blake Howald, Isabelle Moulinier, Andrew Mushett, John Ohle, Chris Schultz
  • Patent number: 10095692
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a system and method for bootstrapping templates for use in natural language sentence generation. More specifically, the present invention relates to identifying a set of candidate sentences from a large corpus based on a set of original templates by using a similarity measure. The set of candidate sentences are then processed or cleaned to generate a set of templates for use in natural language sentence generation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 29, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 9, 2018
    Assignee: Thornson Reuters Global Resources Unlimited Company
    Inventors: Dezhao Song, Blake Howald, Frank Schilder
  • Publication number: 20180197128
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a computer-based system for identifying supply chain risks and generating supply chain graphs representing an interconnected network of entities. An industrial graph database application is configured to account for direct and indirect (transitive) supplier risk and importance, based on a weighted set of measures: criticality, replaceability, centrality and distance. A graph-based model serves as an interactive and visual supply chain risk and importance explorer. A supply network is induced from textual data by applying text mining techniques to news stories and used to populate the supply chain/graph database.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 6, 2017
    Publication date: July 12, 2018
    Applicant: Thomson Reuters Global Resources Unlimited Company
    Inventors: Lucas Carstens, Jochen L. Leidner, Krzysztof Szymanski, Blake Howald
  • Patent number: 9953031
    Abstract: A method includes receiving a corpus comprising a set of pre-segmented texts. The method further includes creating a plurality of modified pre-segmented texts for the set of pre-segmented texts by extracting a set of semantic terms for each pre-segmented text within the set of pre-segmented texts and applying at least one domain tag for each pre-segmented text within the set of pre-segmented texts. The method further includes clustering the plurality of modified pre-segmented texts into one or more conceptual units, wherein each of the one or more conceptual units is associated with one or more templates, wherein each of the one or more templates corresponds to one of the plurality of modified pre-segmented texts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 15, 2016
    Date of Patent: April 24, 2018
    Assignee: Thomson Reuters Global Resources
    Inventors: Frank Schilder, Blake Howald, Ravi Kondadadi
  • Publication number: 20170046338
    Abstract: A method includes receiving a corpus comprising a set of pre-segmented texts. The method further includes creating a plurality of modified pre-segmented texts for the set of pre-segmented texts by extracting a set of semantic terms for each pre-segmented text within the set of pre-segmented texts and applying at least one domain tag for each pre-segmented text within the set of pre-segmented texts. The method further includes clustering the plurality of modified pre-segmented texts into one or more conceptual units, wherein each of the one or more conceptual units is associated with one or more templates, wherein each of the one or more templates corresponds to one of the plurality of modified pre-segmented texts.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 15, 2016
    Publication date: February 16, 2017
    Applicant: Thomson Reuters Global Resources
    Inventors: Frank Schilder, Blake Howald, Ravi Kondadadi
  • Patent number: 9529795
    Abstract: A method includes receiving a corpus comprising a set of pre-segmented texts. The method further includes creating a plurality of modified pre-segmented texts for the set of pre-segmented texts by extracting a set of semantic terms for each pre-segmented text within the set of pre-segmented texts and applying at least one domain tag for each pre-segmented text within the set of pre-segmented texts. The method further includes clustering the plurality of modified pre-segmented texts into one or more conceptual units, wherein each of the one or more conceptual units is associated with one or more templates, wherein each of the one or more templates corresponds to one of the plurality of modified pre-segmented texts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 29, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2016
    Assignee: Thomson Reuters Global Resources
    Inventors: Ravi Kondadadi, Blake Howald, Frank Schilder
  • Patent number: 9424254
    Abstract: A method includes receiving a corpus comprising a set of pre-segmented texts. The method further includes creating a plurality of modified pre-segmented texts for the set of pre-segmented texts by extracting a set of semantic terms for each pre-segmented text within the set of pre-segmented texts and applying at least one domain tag for each pre-segmented text within the set of pre-segmented texts. The method further includes clustering the plurality of modified pre-segmented texts into one or more conceptual units, wherein each of the one or more conceptual units is associated with one or more templates, wherein each of the one or more templates corresponds to one of the plurality of modified pre-segmented texts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 11, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 23, 2016
    Assignee: Thomson Reuters Global Resoures
    Inventors: Blake Howald, Ravi Kondadadi, Frank Schilder
  • Patent number: 9355372
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method and system directed to predicting implicit rhetorical relations between two spans of text, e.g., in a large annotated corpus, such as the Penn Discourse Treebank (“PDTB”), Rhetorical Structure Theory corpus, and the Discourse Graph Bank, and particularly directed to determining a rhetorical relation in the absence of an explicit discourse marker. Surface level features may be used to capture pragmatic information encoded in the absent marker. In one manner a simplified feature set based only on raw text and semantic dependencies is used to improve performance for all relations. By using surface level features to predict implicit rhetorical relations for the large annotated corpus the invention approaches a theoretical maximum performance, suggesting that more data will not necessarily improve performance based on these and similarly situated features.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 3, 2014
    Date of Patent: May 31, 2016
    Assignee: Thomson Reuters Global Resources
    Inventors: Blake Howald, Andrew Nystrom
  • Publication number: 20160048509
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a system, method and medium for associating portions of advocational documents with portions of tribunal decisions in view of common or similar characteristics that are identified between the associated entities. In addition, the associated advocational document portions are imparted with certain characteristics resulting from such an association, such as inheriting the topic of the associated tribunal decision portion or inheriting general characteristics of the decision such as judge or jurisdiction. This allows for the subsequent retrieval of advocational documents in view of various criteria associated with a decision or portion thereof.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 14, 2014
    Publication date: February 18, 2016
    Inventors: Blake Howald, Isabelle Moulinier, Andrew Mushett, John Ohle, Chris Schultz
  • Publication number: 20160048510
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a system, method and medium for associating portions of advocational documents with portions of tribunal decisions in view of common or similar characteristics that are identified between the associated entities. In addition, the associated advocational document portions are imparted with certain characteristics resulting from such an association, such as inheriting the topic of the associated tribunal decision portion or inheriting general characteristics of the decision such as judge or jurisdiction. This allows for the subsequent retrieval of advocational documents in view of various criteria associated with a decision or portion thereof.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 14, 2014
    Publication date: February 18, 2016
    Inventors: Blake Howald, Isabelle Moulinier, Andrew Mushett, John Ohle, Chris Schultz
  • Publication number: 20150261745
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a system and method for bootstrapping templates for use in natural language sentence generation. More specifically, the present invention relates to identifying a set of candidate sentences from a large corpus based on a set of original templates by using a similarity measure. The set of candidate sentences are then processed or cleaned to generate a set of templates for use in natural language sentence generation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 29, 2015
    Publication date: September 17, 2015
    Inventors: Dezhao Song, Blake Howald, Frank Schilder
  • Publication number: 20150227508
    Abstract: A method includes receiving a corpus comprising a set of pre-segmented texts. The method further includes creating a plurality of modified pre-segmented texts for the set of pre-segmented texts by extracting a set of semantic terms for each pre-segmented text within the set of pre-segmented texts and applying at least one domain tag for each pre-segmented text within the set of pre-segmented texts. The method further includes clustering the plurality of modified pre-segmented texts into one or more conceptual units, wherein each of the one or more conceptual units is associated with one or more templates, wherein each of the one or more templates corresponds to one of the plurality of modified pre-segmented texts.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 11, 2014
    Publication date: August 13, 2015
    Inventors: Blake Howald, Ravi Kondadadi, Frank Schilder
  • Publication number: 20150039294
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method and system directed to predicting implicit rhetorical relations between two spans of text, e.g., in a large annotated corpus, such as the Penn Discourse Treebank (“PDTB”), Rhetorical Structure Theory corpus, and the Discourse Graph Bank, and particularly directed to determining a rhetorical relation in the absence of an explicit discourse marker. Surface level features may be used to capture pragmatic information encoded in the absent marker. In one manner a simplified feature set based only on raw text and semantic dependencies is used to improve performance for all relations. By using surface level features to predict implicit rhetorical relations for the large annotated corpus the invention approaches a theoretical maximum performance, suggesting that more data will not necessarily improve performance based on these and similarly situated features.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 3, 2014
    Publication date: February 5, 2015
    Inventors: Blake Howald, Andrew Nystrom