Patents by Inventor Charles Oppermann

Charles Oppermann 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).

  • Programmatically providing direct access to user interface elements of an application program
    Patent number: 6334157
    Abstract: An architecture is provided that enables an accessibility aid to directly access and manipulate user interface elements of an application program programmatically. Moreover, such access and manipulation occurs in an application-independent manner, so that an accessibility aid utilizing the architecture can access any application program that conforms to the architecture, without the accessibility aid needing any prior knowledge of the application program or its user interface elements. User interface elements typically have both a visual representation displayed on the video display and an implementation, which is the code and data implementing the user interface element. The architecture provides an accessibility aid with direct access to the implementation of user interface elements, thus enabling the accessibility aid to both examine various characteristics of the user interface element and manipulate these characteristics, which may affect its visual representation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 11, 1997
    Date of Patent: December 25, 2001
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Charles Oppermann, Nathaniel S. Brown, Gregory C. Lowney, Robert G. Atkinson, Laura J. Butler, Peter Kam-Ho Wong
  • Providing access to user interface elements of legacy application programs
    Patent number: 6144377
    Abstract: An architecture is provided that enables an accessibility aid to directly access and manipulate user interface elements of an application program programmatically. Moreover, such access and manipulation occurs in an application-independent manner, so that an accessibility aid utilizing the architecture can access the user interface elements of any application program that conforms to the architecture, without the accessibility aid needing any prior knowledge of the application program or its user interface elements. User interface elements typically have both a visual representation displayed on the video display and an implementation, which is the code and data implementing the user interface element. The architecture provides an accessibility aid with direct access to the implementation of user interface elements, thus enabling the accessibility aid to both examine various characteristics of the user interface element and manipulate these characteristics, which may affect its visual representation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 11, 1997
    Date of Patent: November 7, 2000
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Charles Oppermann, Laura J. Butler, Steven M. Donie, Peter Kam-Ho Wong