Patents by Inventor Christohper Lawrence Brealey

Christohper Lawrence Brealey 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).

  • Method and apparatus for passing null references between software components through legacy framework
    Patent number: 6775822
    Abstract: Intermediary frameworks allow software components to agree on sentinel values. When a software component attempts to pass a null value to a software component that does not support null values, an intermediate framework replaces the null value with a corresponding sentinel value. When a software component that is not null-capable attempts to pass a sentinel value to a null-capable software component, the intermediate framework replaces the sentinel with a null value. The sentinel values may be randomly generated or assigned by a user. A sentinel value is a valid data value that is never used during program execution. A user may designate the sentinel values based on the data models of the software components.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 19, 2000
    Date of Patent: August 10, 2004
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Ajay A. Apte, Christohper Lawrence Brealey