Patents by Inventor Christopher D. Payne

Christopher D. Payne 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).

  • Publication number: 20080270552
    Abstract: Embodiments include a system, a device, an apparatus, a method and a computer program product. An embodiment provides an influencer discovery method includes receiving at least one of content site data, computing device data, search engine site data, or beneficiary site data. The method also includes determining a correlation between the communication between the content site and the computing device responsive to a human user input; and the communication between the computing device responsive to a human user input and the beneficiary site.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 8, 2007
    Publication date: October 30, 2008
    Inventors: Gary W. Flake, William H. Gates, Alexander G. Gounares, W. Daniel Hillis, Royce A. Levien, Mark A. Malamud, Craig J. Mundie, Christopher D. Payne, Richard F. Rashid, Clarence T. Tegreene, Charles Whitmer, Lowell L. Wood, Robert W. Lord
  • Publication number: 20080005069
    Abstract: A system that employs an explicitly and/or implicitly trained model in order to return entity-specific computer-based search results is provided. The innovation can provide for a customized search model that focuses search in connection with achieving information that is meaningful with respect to goals of an entity. The model can be used to modify a search query in accordance with a goal of the entity or to generate the search query thereby returning meaningful and/or targeted results to the user. The system can automatically gather entity-related data thereafter determining or inferring a goal as well as training the model. Moreover, the system can selectively configure (e.g., order, rank, filter) and render results to a user based upon the model.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 28, 2006
    Publication date: January 3, 2008
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Christopher D. Payne, Eric J. Horvitz, Alexander G. Gounares, Susan T. Dumais, Kyle G. Peltonen, Gary W. Flake, Xuedong D. Huang, William H. Gates, John C. Platt, Oliver Hurst-Hiller, Joshua T. Goodman, Christopher A. Meek, Ramez Naam, Raymond E. Ozzie, Eric D. Brill
  • Publication number: 20080005076
    Abstract: A system that employs an explicitly and/or implicitly trained model in order to return entity-specific computer-based search results is provided. The innovation can provide for a customized search model that focuses search in connection with achieving information that is meaningful with respect to goals of an entity. The model can be used to modify a search query in accordance with a goal of the entity or to generate the search query thereby returning meaningful and/or targeted results to the user. The system can automatically gather entity-related data thereafter determining or inferring a goal as well as training the model. Moreover, the system can selectively configure (e.g., order, rank, filter) and render results to a user based upon the model.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 28, 2006
    Publication date: January 3, 2008
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Christopher D. Payne, Eric J. Horvitz, Alexander G. Gounares, Susan T. Dumais, Kyle G. Peltonen, Gary W. Flake, Xuedong D. Huang, William H. Gates, John C. Platt, Oliver Hurst-Hiller, Joshua T. Goodman, Christopher A. Meek, Ramez Naam, Raymond E. Ozzie, Eric D. Brill
  • Patent number: 7249319
    Abstract: The subject invention provides for systems and methods that allow a web user to more easily and readily print what they actually want to print and at the same time, mitigates user frustration that often ensues from poor web page printing. More specifically, the subject invention involves deciphering a structure or layout of any web page on the Internet. When a user employs the present print feature, the invention can be invoked to analyze the structure of a current web page to automatically generate a print preview page of the current web page. After analyzing the current web page, extraneous content of the page that is deemed to be non-critical or non-essential to that web page can be removed for printing purposes. Furthermore, previous knowledge learned regarding web page structure can be applied to determine the page and/or content structure of the current page to facilitate generating the print preview page.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2003
    Date of Patent: July 24, 2007
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Christopher D. Payne, Oliver Hurst-Hiller, Eric Watson, Brett D. Brewer