Patents by Inventor Christopher A. Meek

Christopher A. Meek 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: 10482482
    Abstract: A training system is described herein for generating a prediction model that relies on a feature space with reduced dimensionality. The training system performs this task by producing partitions, each of which corresponds to a subset of aspect values (where each aspect value, in turn, may correspond to one or more attribute values). The training system then produces instances of statistical information associated with the partitions. Each instance of statistical information therefore corresponds to feature information that applies to a plurality of aspect values, rather than a single aspect value. The training system then trains the prediction model based on the feature information. Also described herein is a prediction module that uses the prediction model to make predictions in various online contexts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 13, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 19, 2019
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Mikhail Bilenko, Ran Gilad-Bachrach, Christopher A. Meek, Mikhail Royzner
  • Patent number: 10262272
    Abstract: Technologies are described herein for active machine learning. An active machine learning method can include initiating active machine learning through an active machine learning system configured to train an auxiliary machine learning model to produce at least one new labeled observation, refining a capacity of a target machine learning model based on the active machine learning, and retraining the auxiliary machine learning model with the at least one new labeled observation subsequent to refining the capacity of the target machine learning model. Additionally, the target machine learning model is a limited-capacity machine learning model according to the description provided herein.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 2014
    Date of Patent: April 16, 2019
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: David Maxwell Chickering, Christopher A. Meek, Patrice Y. Simard, Rishabh Krishnan Iyer
  • Patent number: 9652614
    Abstract: Technologies for an application reputation service to assist users with minimizing their computerized machines' exposure to and infection from malware, including an application reputation service that contains the reputations for elements (e.g., applications) that are known to be non-malicious as well as those known to be malicious. In one example, when a user attempts to install or execute a new application, the service is queried by the user's machine with a set of identities for the element. The service determines the reputation of the application by referencing a knowledge base of known reputations and returns an indication (e.g., an overall rating, or a flag) of how safe that application would be to install and run on the user's computer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 12, 2014
    Date of Patent: May 16, 2017
    Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
    Inventors: Geoff Hulten, Paul Steve Rehfuss, Ron Franczyk, Christopher A. Meek, John Scarrow, Andrew Newman
  • Patent number: 9396269
    Abstract: Architecture that monitors interaction data (e.g., search queries, query results and click-through rates), and provides users with links to other users that fall into similar categories with respect to the foregoing monitored activities (e.g., providing links to individuals and groups that share common interests and/or profiles). A search engine can be interactively coupled with one or more social networks, and that maps individuals and/or groups within respective social networks to subsets of categories associated with searches. A database stores mapped information which can be continuously updated and reorganized as links within the system mapping become stronger or weaker. The architecture can comprise a social network system that includes a database for mapping search-related information to an entity of a social network, and a search component for processing a search query for search results and returning a link to an entity of a social network based on the search query.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 28, 2006
    Date of Patent: July 19, 2016
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Christopher A. Meek, Eric J. Horvitz, Joshua T. Goodman, Gary W. Flake, Oliver Hurst-Hiller, Anoop Gupta, Ramez Naam, Kenneth A. Moss, William H. Gates, III, John C. Platt, Trenholme J. Griffin, Bradly A. Brunell
  • Publication number: 20160162802
    Abstract: Technologies are described herein for active machine learning. An active machine learning method can include initiating active machine learning through an active machine learning system configured to train an auxiliary machine learning model to produce at least one new labeled observation, refining a capacity of a target machine learning model based on the active machine learning, and retraining the auxiliary machine learning model with the at least one new labeled observation subsequent to refining the capacity of the target machine learning model. Additionally, the target machine learning model is a limited-capacity machine learning model according to the description provided herein.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 7, 2014
    Publication date: June 9, 2016
    Inventors: David Maxwell Chickering, Christopher A. Meek, Patrice Y. Simard, Rishabh Krishnan Iyer
  • Patent number: 9283476
    Abstract: Systems and methods allow an on-line game to extract information relevant to a specific need of a game platform or service platform. The specific need relates to management and use of digital content, and is addressed by designing and playing an on-line collaborative game. The rules of the game intend to solve a specific task dictated by the specific need. Players' responses to the game generate a wealth of information related to a specific task objective, such as ranking, sorting, and evaluating a set of digital content items. To compel participation in a game, players can be rewarded with monetary value rewards. As a game illustration, an image selection game (ISG) that exploits human contextual inference is described in detail. The information extracted from ISG is a list of key-image associations, relevant for the task of image sorting and ranking.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 22, 2007
    Date of Patent: March 15, 2016
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Anton Mityagin, Aparna Lakshmiratan, Asela J. Gunawardana, Christopher A. Meek, David M. Chickering, Paul N. Bennett, Timothy S. Paek
  • Publication number: 20160014104
    Abstract: A system is described for allowing a user, operating a trusted device, to remotely log into a server via a potentially untrustworthy client. A first secure connection is established between the client and the server. A second secure connection is established between the device and the server through the client. The user then remotely logs into the server over the second secure connection using the device. The second secure connection is tunneled within the first secure connection, preventing the untrustworthy client from discovering personal information associated with the user. According to one feature, prior to forming the second secure connection, the user establishes a pairing relationship with the client by reading an address of the client using a reading mechanism. According to another feature, the device can receive marketing information in the course of a transaction.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 9, 2015
    Publication date: January 14, 2016
    Inventors: Carlos Garcia Jurado Suarez, Curtis N. von Veh, Darko Kirovski, Christopher A. Meek
  • Patent number: 9183173
    Abstract: Described is a technology for measuring the similarity between two objects (e.g., documents), via a framework that learns the term-weighting function from training data, e.g., labeled pairs of objects, to develop a learned model. A learning procedure tunes the model parameters by minimizing a defined loss function of the similarity score. Also described is using the learning procedure and learned model to detect near duplicate documents.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 2010
    Date of Patent: November 10, 2015
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Wen-tau Yih, Christopher A. Meek, Hannaneh Hajishirzi
  • Patent number: 9141704
    Abstract: Architecture that monitors interaction data (e.g., search queries, query results and click-through rates), and provides users with links to other users that fall into similar categories with respect to the foregoing monitored activities (e.g., providing links to individuals and groups that share common interests and/or profiles). A search engine can be interactively coupled with one or more social networks, and that maps individuals and/or groups within respective social networks to subsets of categories associated with searches. A database stores mapped information which can be continuously updated and reorganized as links within the system mapping become stronger or weaker. The architecture can comprise a social network system that includes a database for mapping search-related information to an entity of a social network, and a search component for processing a search query for search results and returning a link to an entity of a social network based on the search query.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 28, 2006
    Date of Patent: September 22, 2015
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Christopher A. Meek, Eric J. Horvitz, Joshua T. Goodman, Gary W. Flake, Oliver Hurst-Hiller, Anoop Gupta, Ramez Naam, Kenneth A. Moss, William H. Gates, III, John C. Platt, Trenholme J. Griffin, Bradly A. Brunell
  • Publication number: 20150161365
    Abstract: Human Interaction Proofs (“HIPs”, sometimes referred to as “captchas”), may be generated automatically. An captcha specification language may be defined, which allows a captcha scheme to be defined in terms of how symbols are to be chosen and drawn, and how those symbols are obscured. The language may provide mechanisms to specify the various ways in which to obscure symbols. New captcha schemes may be generated from existing specifications, by using genetic algorithms that combine features from existing captcha schemes that have been successful. Moreover, the likelihood that a captcha scheme has been broken by attackers may be estimated by collecting data on the time that it takes existing captcha schemes to be broken, and using regression to estimate the time to breakage as a function of either the captcha's features or its measured quality.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 18, 2015
    Publication date: June 11, 2015
    Inventors: Geoffrey J. Hulten, Patrice Y. Simard, Darko Kirovski, Jesper B. Lind, Christopher A. Meek
  • Patent number: 9047560
    Abstract: A method of generating a decision graph from event stream data, wherein the event stream data includes a plurality of events, and each event includes an associated time stamp, includes generating decision nodes for the graph, wherein the decision nodes each comprise a question having a temporal element. The method includes generating leaf nodes for the graph, wherein the leaf nodes each comprise a rate parameter, and iteratively splitting and merging nodes in the graph in order to maximize a measure of purity of outcomes in resulting nodes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2011
    Date of Patent: June 2, 2015
    Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
    Inventors: Asela Jeevaka Ranaweera Gunawardana, Christopher A. Meek, Puyang Xu
  • Patent number: 8996515
    Abstract: Two methods for measuring keyword-document relevance are described. The methods receive a keyword and a document as input and output a probability value for the keyword. The first method is a similarity-based approach which uses techniques for measuring similarity between two short-text segments to measure relevance between the keyword and the document. The second method is a regression-based approach based on an assumption that if an out-of-document phrase (the keyword) is semantically similar to an in-document phrase, then relevance scores of the in and out-of document phrases should be close to each other.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 11, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 31, 2015
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Wen-tau Yih, Christopher A. Meek
  • Patent number: 8984292
    Abstract: A human interactive puzzle (HIP) authorization architecture where keyed and animated puzzles are executed by HIP players which are distinct and obfuscated to the point where breaking a single player is a relatively costly operation. A key is created in response to a request for a service, a HIP player is created based on the key, and a small installation executable is created that expands during installation to produce a computationally expensive data structure on the client relative to verification of the solution at the server. Thus, copying of the player or relay of the puzzle to a third system requires more time than allowed to receive the solution at the server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 24, 2010
    Date of Patent: March 17, 2015
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Jesper B. Lind, Darko Kirovski, Christopher A. Meek
  • Patent number: 8978144
    Abstract: Human Interaction Proofs (“HIPs”, sometimes referred to as “captchas”), may be generated automatically. An captcha specification language may be defined, which allows a captcha scheme to be defined in terms of how symbols are to be chosen and drawn, and how those symbols are obscured. The language may provide mechanisms to specify the various ways in which to obscure symbols. New captcha schemes may be generated from existing specifications, by using genetic algorithms that combine features from existing captcha schemes that have been successful. Moreover, the likelihood that a captcha scheme has been broken by attackers may be estimated by collecting data on the time that it takes existing captcha schemes to be broken, and using regression to estimate the time to breakage as a function of either the captcha's features or its measured quality.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 19, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 10, 2015
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Geoffrey J. Hulten, Patrice Y. Simard, Darko Kirovski, Jesper B. Lind, Christopher A. Meek
  • Patent number: 8966096
    Abstract: A system is described for allowing a user, operating a trusted device, to remotely log into a server via a potentially untrustworthy client. A first secure connection is established between the client and the server. A second secure connection is established between the device and the server through the client. The user then remotely logs into the server over the second secure connection using the device. The second secure connection is tunneled within the first secure connection, preventing the untrustworthy client from discovering personal information associated with the user. According to one feature, prior to forming the second secure connection, the user establishes a pairing relationship with the client by reading an address of the client using a reading mechanism. According to another feature, the device can receive marketing information in the course of a transaction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 6, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 24, 2015
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Carlos Garcia Jurado Suarez, Curtis N. von Veh, Darko Kirovski, Christopher A. Meek
  • Patent number: 8892498
    Abstract: Methods and systems for forecasting a future event in an event stream are provided herein. The event stream includes a number of events, wherein each of the events includes an event label and an associated time stamp. The system includes a processor that is adapted to execute stored instructions and a system memory. The system memory includes code configured to generate one or more decision graphs for predicting events with event labels chosen from a number of event labels based on the events within the event stream, wherein the decision graph includes decision nodes and leaf nodes, and wherein each of the decision nodes includes a question. The system memory also includes code configured to analyze event stream data using the decision graph and forecast a future event in the event stream based on the analysis of the event stream data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 18, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Asela Jeevaka Ranaweera Guanwardana, Christopher A. Meek, Ankur P. Parikh
  • Publication number: 20140337096
    Abstract: A training system is described herein for generating a prediction model that relies on a feature space with reduced dimensionality. The training system performs this task by producing partitions, each of which corresponds to a subset of aspect values (where each aspect value, in turn, may correspond to one or more attribute values). The training system then produces instances of statistical information associated with the partitions. Each instance of statistical information therefore corresponds to feature information that applies to a plurality of aspect values, rather than a single aspect value. The training system then trains the prediction model based on the feature information. Also described herein is a prediction module that uses the prediction model to make predictions in various online contexts.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 13, 2013
    Publication date: November 13, 2014
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Mikhail Bilenko, Ran Gilad-Bachrach, Christopher A. Meek, Mikhail Royzner
  • Publication number: 20140298465
    Abstract: The claimed subject matter is directed to the use of an application reputation service to assist users with minimizing their computerized machines' exposure to and infection from malware. Specifically, the claimed subject matter provides a method and system of an application reputation service that contains the reputations for elements that are known to be non-malicious as well as those known to be malicious. One embodiment of the claimed subject matter is implemented as a method to determine the reputation of an element (e.g., an application). When a user attempts to install or execute a new application, the Application Reputation Service is queried by the user's machine with a set of identities for the element. The Application Reputation Service determines the reputation of the application by referencing a knowledge base of known reputations and returns an indication (e.g., an overall rating, or a flag) of how safe that application would be to install and run on the user's computer.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 12, 2014
    Publication date: October 2, 2014
    Inventors: Geoff Hulten, Paul Steve Rehfuss, Ron Franczyk, Christopher A. Meek, John Scarrow, Andrew Newman
  • Publication number: 20140259104
    Abstract: Human Interaction Proofs (“HIPs”, sometimes referred to as “captchas”), may be generated automatically. An captcha specification language may be defined, which allows a captcha scheme to be defined in terms of how symbols are to be chosen and drawn, and how those symbols are obscured. The language may provide mechanisms to specify the various ways in which to obscure symbols. New captcha schemes may be generated from existing specifications, by using genetic algorithms that combine features from existing captcha schemes that have been successful. Moreover, the likelihood that a captcha scheme has been broken by attackers may be estimated by collecting data on the time that it takes existing captcha schemes to be broken, and using regression to estimate the time to breakage as a function of either the captcha's features or its measured quality.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 19, 2014
    Publication date: September 11, 2014
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Geoffrey J. Hulten, Patrice Y. Simard, Darko Kirovski, Jesper B. Lind, Christopher A. Meek
  • Patent number: 8769702
    Abstract: The claimed subject matter is directed to the use of an application reputation service to assist users with minimizing their computerized machines' exposure to infection from malware. The claimed subject matter provides an application reputation service that contains the reputations for elements that are known to be non-malicious as well as those known to be malicious. One embodiment is implemented as a method to determine the reputation of an element (e.g., an application). When a user attempts to install or execute a new application, the Application Reputation Service is queried by the user's machine with a set of identities for the element. The reputation of the application is determined by referencing a knowledge base of known reputations and returns an indication (e.g., an overall rating, or a flag) of how safe that application would be to install and run on the user's computer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 16, 2008
    Date of Patent: July 1, 2014
    Assignee: Micosoft Corporation
    Inventors: Geoff Hulten, Steve Rehfuss, Ron Franczyk, Christopher A. Meek, John Scarrow, Andrew Newman