Patents by Inventor Frederick W. Kiefer

Frederick W. Kiefer 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: 10061971
    Abstract: Systems and methods for biometric authentication are disclosed. The invention may be used to authenticate an individual. At least two enrollment templates may be obtained at different times. Later, an inquiry template may be obtained and compared to each of the enrollment templates in separate and distinct comparison operations. The match scores arising from the comparison operations may be fused to provide a composite match score. The composite match score may be compared to an acceptance range. If the composite match score is within the acceptance range, the individual may be authenticated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 25, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 28, 2018
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventors: Ming Li, Frederick W. Kiefer, John Keith Schneider, Tao Sheng, Alwyn Dos Remedios
  • Publication number: 20160026840
    Abstract: Systems and methods for biometric authentication are disclosed. The invention may be used to authenticate an individual. At least two enrollment templates may be obtained at different times. Later, an inquiry template may be obtained and compared to each of the enrollment templates in separate and distinct comparison operations. The match scores arising from the comparison operations may be fused to provide a composite match score. The composite match score may be compared to an acceptance range. If the composite match score is within the acceptance range, the individual may be authenticated.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 25, 2015
    Publication date: January 28, 2016
    Inventors: Ming Li, Frederick W. Kiefer, John Keith Schneider, Tao Sheng, Alwyn Dos Remedios
  • Patent number: 6937748
    Abstract: An automatic finger guide for fingerprint scanners includes active scan area on the scanner surface upon which one finger rests and a non-active scan area on the scanner surface on which the other finger(s) rest to provide stability, a stop post to indicate how far forward to place the hand, a guide post to assist in positioning the finger left to right or right to left as the case may be, sensors on the post to provide feedback to the user to when the hand is properly in place and to determine the position as to where the finger comes to rest on the active scan area.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 11, 2000
    Date of Patent: August 30, 2005
    Assignee: Ultra-Scan Corporation
    Inventors: John K. Schneider, Stephen M. Gojevic, Frank W. Keeney, Frederick W. Kiefer
  • Patent number: 5926555
    Abstract: A fingerprint identification system from a gray scale image of the fingerprint includes the steps of converting fingerprint image into a digitized gray scale image, enhancing gray scale to provide uniform contrast over entire fingerprint image, down-sampling the contrast enhanced image to limit the number of pixels analyzed, generating a gradient map of the fingerprint image, defining a calculation kernel over which ridge angle determination is made by reference to gradient map, causing the calculation kernel to traverse over gradient map in a predetermined increment over pixels comprising the fingerprint image, smoothing the ridge angle map using the process of Fourier filtering, and smoothing the image quality map using the process of erosion and dilation. The ridge angle map and image quality maps are recorded.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 3, 1997
    Date of Patent: July 20, 1999
    Assignee: Calspan Corporation
    Inventors: James R. Ort, Douglas L. Lange, Frederick W. Kiefer, Raymond J. Dennison
  • Patent number: 5799098
    Abstract: In a method for comparing one fingerprint to another, there is recorded for each fingerprint the location and angle of minutiae along with a quality measure of each minutiae, and the core and delta location along with the local average image. An image state map defining high quality image areas with and without minutiae and areas of low image quality is also recorded. In matching fingerprints, ridge angle maps are used to align fingerprint images, then state maps are compared, followed by a comparison of minutiae locations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 3, 1997
    Date of Patent: August 25, 1998
    Assignee: Calspan Corporation
    Inventors: James R. Ort, Douglas L. Lange, Frederick W. Kiefer, Raymond J. Dennison
  • Patent number: 5659626
    Abstract: A method for locating minutia in a gray scale image of a fingerprint using a pair of filters, called "Gabor" and "Minutia" filters, includes determining direction and spacing of ridges at regularly spaced pixels, aligning filters by ridge direction, determining outputs of filters where Gabor Filter has high level output when in parallel ridge flow and, due to phase discontinuity at a minutia, low level output when in neighborhood of a minutia. The Minutia filter exhibits opposite phenomenon, having low level output in parallel ridge flow and high output in neighborhood of a minutia. A method for creating a state map of a fingerprint includes determining image quality, identifying minutia locations, determining areas of good quality where minutia are present, areas of good quality where no minutia are present and areas where quality is below a predetermined value to reliably determine presence or absence of minutia.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 20, 1994
    Date of Patent: August 19, 1997
    Assignee: Calspan Corporation
    Inventors: James R. Ort, Douglas L. Lange, Frederick W. Kiefer, Raymond J. Dennison
  • Patent number: 5381156
    Abstract: The present invention is a Multiple Target Doppler Tracker which tracks a plurality of components, including debris and submunitions of a munition burst apart above the ground. A plurality of transmitters transmits constant frequency (CW) signals towards the burst event of the munition and a plurality of receivers receive the signals reflected from the components. The signals received by the receivers are processed into frequency spectra. The spectra are analyzed to determine the path of a selected number of components. Using the path information the selected components are tracked with tracking devices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 15, 1993
    Date of Patent: January 10, 1995
    Assignee: Calspan Corporation
    Inventors: Ditmar H. Bock, Marjorie A. Rude, Frederick W. Kiefer