Patents by Inventor Brian Sander

Brian Sander 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: 8995689
    Abstract: Electronic devices and accessories such as headsets for electronic devices are provided. A microphone may be included in an accessory to capture sound for an associated electronic device. Buttons and other user interfaces may be included in the accessories. An accessory may have an audio plug that connects to a mating audio jack in an electronic device, thereby establishing a wired communications link between the accessory and the electronic device. The electronic device may include power supply circuitry for applying bias voltages to the accessory. The bias voltages may bias a microphone and may adjust settings in the accessory such as settings related to operating modes. User input information may be conveyed between the accessory and the electronic device using ultrasonic tone transmission. The electronic device may also gather input from the accessory using a voltage detector coupled to lines in the communications path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 3, 2008
    Date of Patent: March 31, 2015
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Wendell B. Sander, Jeffrey Terlizzi, Douglas M. Farrar, Timothy Johnson, Brian Sander, Brian J. Conner, Jesse L. Dorogusker
  • Patent number: 8983093
    Abstract: Electronic devices and accessories such as headsets for electronic devices are provided. A microphone may be included in an accessory to capture sound for an associated electronic device. Buttons and other user interfaces may be included in the accessories. An accessory may have an audio plug that connects to a mating audio jack in an electronic device, thereby establishing a wired communications link between the accessory and the electronic device. The electronic device may include power supply circuitry for applying bias voltages to the accessory. The bias voltages may bias a microphone and may adjust settings in the accessory such as settings related to operating modes. User input information may be conveyed between the accessory and the electronic device using ultrasonic tone transmission. The electronic device may also gather input from the accessory using a voltage detector coupled to lines in the communications path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 3, 2008
    Date of Patent: March 17, 2015
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Wendell B. Sander, Jeffrey Terlizzi, Douglas M. Farrar, Timothy Johnson, Brian Sander, Brian J. Conner, Jesse L. Dorogusker
  • Patent number: 8976976
    Abstract: Electronic devices and accessories such as headsets for electronic devices are provided. A microphone may be included in an accessory to capture sound for an associated electronic device. Buttons and other user interfaces may be included in the accessories. An accessory may have an audio plug that connects to a mating audio jack in an electronic device, thereby establishing a wired communications link between the accessory and the electronic device. The electronic device may include power supply circuitry for applying bias voltages to the accessory. The bias voltages may bias a microphone and may adjust settings in the accessory such as settings related to operating modes. User input information may be conveyed between the accessory and the electronic device using ultrasonic tone transmission. The electronic device may also gather input from the accessory using a voltage detector coupled to lines in the communications path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 3, 2008
    Date of Patent: March 10, 2015
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Wendell B. Sander, Jeffrey Terlizzi, Douglas M. Farrar, Timothy Johnson, Brian Sander, Brian J. Conner, Jesse L. Dorogusker
  • Publication number: 20140351622
    Abstract: Handshaking circuits are provided in a communications cable and in a device operable to be mated with the communications cable. Before a device can utilize the power supply signal of such a communications channel, the two handshaking circuits must sufficiently identify one another over a power supply signal with a decreased voltage. The decreased voltage allows for a cable plug to be provided with a safe, protected power that cannot cause harm to a human. The decreased voltage also reduces the chance that a device can receive a primary power supply signal from the cable before the device sufficiently identifies itself. Accordingly, a laptop may be connected to a portable music player, but the voltage of the power supply signal provided by the laptop to the cable may be decreased on-cable until the handshaking circuit of the portable music player sufficiently performs a handshaking operation with a on-cable handshaking circuit.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 10, 2014
    Publication date: November 27, 2014
    Inventors: Doug Farrar, Lawrence Heyl, Brian Sander
  • Patent number: 8891790
    Abstract: Electronic devices and accessories such as headsets for electronic devices are provided. A microphone may be included in an accessory to capture sound for an associated electronic device. Buttons and other user interfaces may be included in the accessories. An accessory may have an audio plug that connects to a mating audio jack in an electronic device, thereby establishing a wired communications link between the accessory and the electronic device. The electronic device may include power supply circuitry for applying bias voltages to the accessory. The bias voltages may bias a microphone and may adjust settings in the accessory such as settings related to operating modes. User input information may be conveyed between the accessory and the electronic device using ultrasonic tone transmission. The electronic device may also gather input from the accessory using a voltage detector coupled to lines in the communications path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 3, 2008
    Date of Patent: November 18, 2014
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Wendell B. Sander, Jeffrey Terlizzi, Douglas M. Farrar, Timothy Johnson, Brian Sander, Brian J. Conner, Jesse L. Dorogusker
  • Patent number: 8812883
    Abstract: Handshaking circuits are provided in a communications cable and in a device operable to be mated with the communications cable. Before a device can utilize the power supply signal of such a communications channel, the two handshaking circuits must sufficiently identify one another over a power supply signal with a decreased voltage. The decreased voltage allows for a cable plug to be provided with a safe, protected power that cannot cause harm to a human. The decreased voltage also reduces the chance that a device can receive a primary power supply signal from the cable before the device sufficiently identifies itself. Accordingly, a laptop may be connected to a portable music player, but the voltage of the power supply signal provided by the laptop to the cable may be decreased on-cable until the handshaking circuit of the portable music player sufficiently performs a handshaking operation with a on-cable handshaking circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 15, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 19, 2014
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Doug Farrar, Lawrence Heyl, Brian Sander
  • Patent number: 8726005
    Abstract: A website fingerprint is generated that characterizes network traffic associated with a website as a website traffic fingerprint that includes size description(s), order description(s), and timing description(s) of packet traffic for the website. A website monitor generates website trace(s) of packet statistics. A correlation processor correlates a sequence of packet statistics from the website trace(s) with the size description, the order description, and timing description found in the website traffic fingerprint(s).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2010
    Date of Patent: May 13, 2014
    Assignee: George Mason Intellectual Properties, Inc.
    Inventors: Angelos Stavrou, Mohammed A. Alhussein, Brian Sanders
  • Patent number: 8600080
    Abstract: Electronic devices and accessories such as headsets for electronic devices are provided. A microphone may be included in an accessory to capture sound for an associated electronic device. Buttons and other user interfaces may be included in the accessories. An accessory may have an audio plug that connects to a mating audio jack in an electronic device, thereby establishing a wired communications link between the accessory and the electronic device. The electronic device may include power supply circuitry for applying bias voltages to the accessory. The bias voltages may bias a microphone and may adjust settings in the accessory such as settings related to operating modes. User input information may be conveyed between the accessory and the electronic device using ultrasonic tone transmission. The electronic device may also gather input from the accessory using a voltage detector coupled to lines in the communications path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 3, 2008
    Date of Patent: December 3, 2013
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Wendell B. Sander, Jeffrey Terlizzi, Douglas M. Farrar, Timothy Johnson, Brian Sander, Brian J. Conner, Jesse L. Dorogusker
  • Publication number: 20130227100
    Abstract: A high availability and load balanced content delivery system and method. A cloud computing content delivery system is provided including multiple content delivery servers (CDSs) configured to deliver content to multiple client devices. The client devices are configured to maintain a source list identifying the multiple CDSs and a primary CDS. The client devices send requests (e.g., yum requests) to the CDS for the mirror list. The client device then uses the mirror list and sends content requests to a first entry on the mirror list. Each CDS is configured to update the mirror list by applying a load balancing algorithm and provide the mirror list to a client device in the event that one or more CDSs are unavailable.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 27, 2012
    Publication date: August 29, 2013
    Inventors: Jason Edward Dobies, Todd Brian Sanders
  • Patent number: 8457157
    Abstract: Electronic devices and equipment may communicate over a wired communications path. The wired communications path may include one or more wires and may be associated with a headphone cable. Data may be conveyed in the form of a digital data stream containing multiple traffic channels. The digital data stream may include superframes, each of which has multiple frames of data. The frames of data may each contain a number of data slots. Some of the slots in a superframe may be used exclusively by a particular one of the traffic channels. Boundary slots may be shared between traffic channels. Data interface circuitry may implement a data dispersion algorithm that determines the pattern in which data from each traffic channel is distributed within each boundary slot. Transmitting data interface circuitry may merge traffic channels into a single data stream. Receiving data interface circuitry may reconstruct the traffic channels.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2013
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Wendell B. Sander, Barry Corlett, David John Tupman, Brian Sander, Jeffrey J. Terlizzi, Andrew Bright, Anup Sharma
  • Publication number: 20130013940
    Abstract: Handshaking circuits are provided in a communications cable and in a device operable to be mated with the communications cable. Before a device can utilize the power supply signal of such a communications channel, the two handshaking circuits must sufficiently identify one another over a power supply signal with a decreased voltage. The decreased voltage allows for a cable plug to be provided with a safe, protected power that cannot cause harm to a human. The decreased voltage also reduces the chance that a device can receive a primary power supply signal from the cable before the device sufficiently identifies itself. Accordingly, a laptop may be connected to a portable music player, but the voltage of the power supply signal provided by the laptop to the cable may be decreased on-cable until the handshaking circuit of the portable music player sufficiently performs a handshaking operation with a on-cable handshaking circuit.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 15, 2012
    Publication date: January 10, 2013
    Applicant: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: DOUG FARRAR, Lawrence Heyl, Brian Sander
  • Patent number: 8332664
    Abstract: Handshaking circuits are provided in a communications cable and in a device operable to be mated with the communications cable. Before a device can utilize the power supply signal of such a communications channel, the two handshaking circuits must sufficiently identify one another over a power supply signal with a decreased voltage. The decreased voltage allows for a cable plug to be provided with a safe, protected power that cannot cause harm to a human. The decreased voltage also reduces the chance that a device can receive a primary power supply signal from the cable before the device sufficiently identifies itself. Accordingly, a laptop may be connected to a portable music player, but the voltage of the power supply signal provided by the laptop to the cable may be decreased on-cable until the handshaking circuit of the portable music player sufficiently performs a handshaking operation with a on-cable handshaking circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 13, 2008
    Date of Patent: December 11, 2012
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Doug Farrar, Lawrence Heyl, Brian Sander
  • Publication number: 20120250913
    Abstract: Electronic devices and accessories are provided that may communicate over wired communications paths. The electronic devices may be portable electronic devices such as cellular telephones or media players and may have audio connectors such as 3.5 mm audio jacks. The accessories may be headsets or other equipment having mating 3.5 mm audio plugs and speakers for playing audio. Microphones may be included in an accessory to gather voice signals and noise cancellation signals. Analog-to-digital converter circuitry in the accessory may digitize the microphone signals. Digital voice signals and voice noise cancellation signals can be transmitted over the communications path and processed by audio digital signal processor circuitry in an electronic device. Digital-to-analog converter circuitry in the accessory may convert digital audio signals to analog speaker signals.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 12, 2012
    Publication date: October 4, 2012
    Inventors: Wendell B. Sander, Jeffrey J. Terlizzi, Brian Sander, David Tupman, Barry Corlett
  • Patent number: 8254592
    Abstract: Electronic devices and accessories such as headsets are provided. An accessory may include speakers and active noise cancellation circuitry. Microphones may be used to pick up ambient noise signals for implementing noise cancellation for the speakers. The accessory may also include a voice microphone and an ambient noise microphone that picks up ambient noise signals for implementing noise cancellation for the voice microphone. A user input interface may gather user input. Ultrasonic tone generators may transmit data between the device and accessory. The electronic device and accessory may be connected to each other by audio connectors. Hybrid circuits that each include a summer and a transconductance amplifier may be selectively switched into or out of use. When switched into use, paths between the device and accessory can support bidirectional communications such as communications involving the simultaneous flow of analog audio and microphone signals in opposite directions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 9, 2009
    Date of Patent: August 28, 2012
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Wendell B. Sander, Jeffrey Terlizzi, Douglas M. Farrar, Brian Sander
  • Patent number: 8223986
    Abstract: Electronic devices and accessories are provided that may communicate over wired communications paths. The electronic devices may be portable electronic devices such as cellular telephones or media players and may have audio connectors such as 3.5 mm audio jacks. The accessories may be headsets or other equipment having mating 3.5 mm audio plugs and speakers for playing audio. Microphones may be included in an accessory to gather voice signals and noise cancellation signals. Analog-to-digital converter circuitry in the accessory may digitize the microphone signals. Digital voice signals and voice noise cancellation signals can be transmitted over the communications path and processed by audio digital signal processor circuitry in an electronic device. Digital-to-analog converter circuitry in the accessory may convert digital audio signals to analog speaker signals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 19, 2009
    Date of Patent: July 17, 2012
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Wendell B. Sander, Jeffrey J. Terlizzi, Brian Sander, David Tupman, Barry Corlett
  • Publication number: 20120155491
    Abstract: Electronic devices and equipment may communicate over a wired communications path. The wired communications path may include one or more wires and may be associated with a headphone cable. Data may be conveyed in the form of a digital data stream containing multiple traffic channels. The digital data stream may include superframes, each of which has multiple frames of data. The frames of data may each contain a number of data slots. Some of the slots in a superframe may be used exclusively by a particular one of the traffic channels. Boundary slots may be shared between traffic channels. Data interface circuitry may implement a data dispersion algorithm that determines the pattern in which data from each traffic channel is distributed within each boundary slot. Transmitting data interface circuitry may merge traffic channels into a single data stream. Receiving data interface circuitry may reconstruct the traffic channels.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 27, 2012
    Publication date: June 21, 2012
    Inventors: Wendell B. Sander, Barry Corlett, David John Tupman, Brian Sander, Jeffrey J. Terlizzi, Andrew Bright, Anup Sharma
  • Patent number: 8130790
    Abstract: Electronic devices and equipment may communicate over a wired communications path. The wired communications path may include one or more wires and may be associated with a headphone cable. Data may be conveyed in the form of a digital data stream containing multiple traffic channels. The digital data stream may include superframes, each of which has multiple frames of data. The frames of data may each contain a number of data slots. Some of the slots in a superframe may be used exclusively by a particular one of the traffic channels. Boundary slots may be shared between traffic channels. Data interface circuitry may implement a data dispersion algorithm that determines the pattern in which data from each traffic channel is distributed within each boundary slot. Transmitting data interface circuitry may merge traffic channels into a single data stream. Receiving data interface circuitry may reconstruct the traffic channels.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2010
    Date of Patent: March 6, 2012
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Wendell B. Sander, Barry Corlett, David John Tupman, Brian Sander, Jeffrey J. Terlizzi, Andrew Bright, Anup Sharma
  • Publication number: 20120051554
    Abstract: Electronic devices may provide microphone bias voltages to accessories. The accessories may include circuitry powered from the microphone bias voltages. The output impedances and the voltages of the microphone bias voltages may be adjusted during operation of the electronic devices. An electronic device may provide a bias voltage to an accessory, may lower the output impedance of the bias voltage, and may increase the voltage of the bias voltage during operation of the electronic device. Accessories that received bias voltages with lowered impedances or raised voltage levels may exhibit greater tolerance to faults such as moisture-based shorts and may be able to continue operating even in the presence of some faults.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 3, 2011
    Publication date: March 1, 2012
    Inventors: Yash Modi, Brian Sander, Jeffrey J. Terlizzi, Jahan Minoo, Wendell B. Sander
  • Publication number: 20110314269
    Abstract: A website fingerprint is generated that characterizes network traffic associated with a website as a website traffic fingerprint that includes size description(s), order description(s), and timing description(s) of packet traffic for the website. A website monitor generates website trace(s) of packet statistics. A correlation processor correlates a sequence of packet statistics from the website trace(s) with the size description, the order description, and timing description found in the website traffic fingerprint(s).
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 10, 2010
    Publication date: December 22, 2011
    Inventors: Angelos Stavrou, Mohammed A. Alhussein, Brian Sanders
  • Publication number: 20110194569
    Abstract: Electronic devices and equipment may communicate over a wired communications path. The wired communications path may include one or more wires and may be associated with a headphone cable. Data may be conveyed in the form of a digital data stream containing multiple traffic channels. The digital data stream may include superframes, each of which has multiple frames of data. The frames of data may each contain a number of data slots. Some of the slots in a superframe may be used exclusively by a particular one of the traffic channels. Boundary slots may be shared between traffic channels. Data interface circuitry may implement a data dispersion algorithm that determines the pattern in which data from each traffic channel is distributed within each boundary slot. Transmitting data interface circuitry may merge traffic channels into a single data stream. Receiving data interface circuitry may reconstruct the traffic channels.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 21, 2010
    Publication date: August 11, 2011
    Inventors: Wendell B. Sander, Barry Corlett, David John Tupman, Brian Sander, Jeffrey J. Terlizzi, Andrew Bright, Anup Sharma