Patents by Inventor Howard Lee

Howard Lee 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: 20250057139
    Abstract: The termite bait station is screwed into earth via external screw threads. A cylinder chamber holds a bait stick and slots expose the bait to the earth. The cylinder has external outboard threads. The cylinder's top has a ring with an interlock system which is complementary to an interlock system on a collar region of a detachable handle. The detachable handle and lateral handle hold permits the user, upon handle rotation in one direction to be implanted in the earth and upon handle rotation in another direction to be extracted from the earth. Interlocking systems include keys interlockable with keyways; outboard configured depending legs coacting with respective detents; and inboard configured depending legs coacting with respective detents.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 31, 2024
    Publication date: February 20, 2025
    Inventor: Howard Lee Gatch, III
  • Patent number: 11775999
    Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for blockchain-based social media commerce referral tracking system (BRTS). In one novel aspect, the blockchain is used to support traceability and transparency for the referral tracking system that monitors transactions of one or more user generated contents (UGCs) with one or more actionable items. Traceability and transparency foster trust among participants. In one embodiment, the BRTS tracks transactions of a UGC, updates a UGC record upon detecting one or more predefined transactions at a receiving node, detects one or more exit transactions at an ending node, and adds a UGC tuple of transactions from the originator node to the ending node based on the UGC record to a blockchain database upon detecting the one or more exit conditions. In another embodiment, the UGC record is updated using a recursive push procedure. In one embodiment, the BRTS generates one or more referral rewards for each UGC tuple record based on a configured rewarding scheme.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 5, 2022
    Date of Patent: October 3, 2023
    Inventors: Wang-Chan Wong, Howard Lee
  • Publication number: 20230168427
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides an optical waveguide design of a fiber modified with a thin layer of epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) material. The design results in an excitation of a highly confined waveguide mode in the fiber near the wavelength where permittivity of thin layer approaches zero. Due to the high field confinement within thin layer, the ENZ mode can be characterized by a peak in modal loss of the hybrid waveguide. Results show that such in-fiber excitation of ENZ mode is due to the coupling of the guided fundamental core mode to the thin-film ENZ mode. The phase matching wavelength, where the coupling takes place, varies depending on the refractive index of the constituents. These ENZ nanostructured optical fibers have many potential applications, for example, in ENZ nonlinear and magneto-optics, as in-fiber wavelength-dependent filters, and as subwavelength fluid channel for optical and bio-photonic sensing.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 31, 2022
    Publication date: June 1, 2023
    Applicant: Baylor University
    Inventors: Ho Wai Howard LEE, Khant MINN, Jingyi YANG, Oleksiy ANOPCHENKO
  • Publication number: 20230111294
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides devices, systems, circuits, and effective methods for advanced optical applications using plasmonics and ENZ materials. The disclosure provides for enhancement of the optical tunability of phase and amplitude of propagating plasmons, nonlinear-optical effects, and resonant network in optical fiber tip nanocircuits and integrates the tunable plasmonic and ENZ effects for in-fiber applications to provide optical fiber with high operating speed and low power consumption. The invention yields efficient coupling of a plasmonic functional nanocircuit on the facet of an optical fiber core. The invention also can use gate-tunable ENZ materials to electrically and nonlinear optically tune the plasmonic nanocircuits for advanced light manipulation. The invention efficiently integrates and manipulates the voltage-tuned ENZ resonance for phase and amplitude modulation in optical fiber nanocircuits.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 18, 2022
    Publication date: April 13, 2023
    Applicant: Baylor University
    Inventor: Ho Wai Howard LEE
  • Publication number: 20230088444
    Abstract: A body of knowledge (BOK) in graphical structure is generated with a set of knowlets. The graphical BOK enables the platform to write up test questions with a RNN NLP writing system in runtime to support the adaptive recruitment process. In one embodiment, the system identifies a BOK with a graphical structure with a set of knowlets. Each knowlet represents a subset of knowledge within the BOK. The system identifies a set of intensional knowlets for the BOK, collects a set of extensional knowlets for the BOK, wherein an extensional knowlet represents the instantiation of an intensional knowlet, generates a BOK graph for the BOK with based on the set of intensional knowlets and the set of the extensional knowlets with each knowlet being a node of the BOK graph, wherein ontologies among knowlet nodes are generated, and generates a list of test questions based on the BOK graph.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 2, 2022
    Publication date: March 23, 2023
    Inventors: Wang-Chan Wong, Howard Lee
  • Patent number: 11604212
    Abstract: The disclosed apparatus may include support portions, a frame (such as a base) configured to maintain the support portions in a spaced-apart configuration, a sample holder configured to receive a sample, and a probe assembly including micromanipulators configured to position one or more probes in contact with the sample. The sample holder may rotate between the support portions, and the probe assembly may rotate with the sample holder so that the one or more probes may maintain contact with a sample in the sample holder as the sample holder is rotated, for example, to expose a portion of the sample for processing. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 2, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc.
    Inventors: Pradip Sairam Pichumani, Sandeep Rekhi, Howard Lee Davidson
  • Publication number: 20230021133
    Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for AI-based robotic automation for persuasive references. In one novel aspect, a robotic persuasive reference is generated based on a prospect product-service (P_PS) matrix, which is generated based on predictive analysis using DNN model and dynamically obtained feedbacks. In one embodiment, the DNN model is trained with customer personal profiles against associated PS revenues for each customer data set. In one embodiment, the predictive analysis uses a decision tree classifier. In one embodiment, the computer system detects one or more predefined triggering events comprising feedback information for the robotic persuasive reference and one or more predefined lifetime events, updates the P_PS matrix based and the robotic persuasive reference accordingly. In one embodiment, the feedback information is a sentiment analysis on responses from the prospect.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 25, 2021
    Publication date: January 19, 2023
    Inventors: Wang-Chan Wong, Howard Lee
  • Patent number: 11531329
    Abstract: A method of monitoring one or more manufacturing components includes clustering vibration data associated with the one or more manufacturing components to generate a plurality of clusters, determining a vibration characteristic of the one or more manufacturing components based on the plurality of clusters, comparing auxiliary data associated with the one or more manufacturing components and an auxiliary data prediction model associated with the one or more manufacturing components, and determining an auxiliary characteristic of the one or more manufacturing components based on a comparison of the auxiliary data associated and the auxiliary data prediction model. The method includes determining a state of the one or more manufacturing components based on the vibration characteristic and the auxiliary characteristic and broadcasting a notification based on the state.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 19, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2022
    Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC
    Inventors: Brodie Schultz, Elizabeth Bullard, Howard Lee Springston, Jr., Chandra Sekhar Jalluri
  • Patent number: 11525959
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides devices, systems, circuits, and effective methods for advanced optical applications using plasmonics and ENZ materials. The disclosure provides for enhancement of the optical tunability of phase and amplitude of propagating plasmons, nonlinear-optical effects, and resonant network in optical fiber tip nanocircuits and integrates the tunable plasmonic and ENZ effects for in-fiber applications to provide optical fiber with high operating speed and low power consumption. The invention yields efficient coupling of a plasmonic functional nanocircuit on the facet of an optical fiber core. The invention also can use gate-tunable ENZ materials to electrically and nonlinear optically tune the plasmonic nanocircuits for advanced light manipulation. The invention efficiently integrates and manipulates the voltage-tuned ENZ resonance for phase and amplitude modulation in optical fiber nanocircuits.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 28, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 13, 2022
    Assignee: Baylor University
    Inventor: Ho Wai Howard Lee
  • Publication number: 20220383353
    Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for blockchain-based social media commerce referral tracking system (BRTS). In one novel aspect, the blockchain is used to support traceability and transparency for the referral tracking system that monitors transactions of one or more user generated contents (UGCs) with one or more actionable items. Traceability and transparency foster trust among participants. In one embodiment, the BRTS tracks transactions of a UGC, updates a UGC record upon detecting one or more predefined transactions at a receiving node, detects one or more exit transactions at an ending node, and adds a UGC tuple of transactions from the originator node to the ending node based on the UGC record to a blockchain database upon detecting the one or more exit conditions. In another embodiment, the UGC record is updated using a recursive push procedure. In one embodiment, the BRTS generates one or more referral rewards for each UGC tuple record based on a configured rewarding scheme.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 5, 2022
    Publication date: December 1, 2022
    Inventors: Wang-Chan Wong, Howard Lee
  • Publication number: 20220366687
    Abstract: A method for performing property surveillance via an unmanned aerial vehicle is provided. Surveillance of one or more properties via an unmanned aerial vehicle is obtained. A geofence that determines boundaries of one of the properties is created using the surveillance. Surveillance outside the geofence for the property is blurred. The blurred surveillance is provided to an owner of that property.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 11, 2022
    Publication date: November 17, 2022
    Inventors: Tim O'Neill, Howard Lee
  • Patent number: 11448820
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides an optical waveguide design of a fiber modified with a thin layer of epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) material. The design results in an excitation of a highly confined waveguide mode in the fiber near the wavelength where permittivity of thin layer approaches zero. Due to the high field confinement within thin layer, the ENZ mode can be characterized by a peak in modal loss of the hybrid waveguide. Results show that such in-fiber excitation of ENZ mode is due to the coupling of the guided fundamental core mode to the thin-film ENZ mode. The phase matching wavelength, where the coupling takes place, varies depending on the refractive index of the constituents. These ENZ nanostructured optical fibers have many potential applications, for example, in ENZ nonlinear and magneto-optics, as in-fiber wavelength-dependent filters, and as subwavelength fluid channel for optical and bio-photonic sensing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 2020
    Date of Patent: September 20, 2022
    Assignee: Baylor University
    Inventors: Ho Wai Howard Lee, Khant Minn, Jingyi Yang, Oleksiy Anopchenko
  • Patent number: 11443393
    Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for blockchain-based social media commerce referral tracking system (BRTS). In one novel aspect, the blockchain is used to support traceability and transparency for the referral tracking system that monitors transactions of one or more user generated contents (UGCs) with one or more actionable items. Traceability and transparency foster trust among participants. In one embodiment, the BRTS tracks transactions of a UGC, updates a UGC record upon detecting one or more predefined transactions at a receiving node, detects one or more exit transactions at an ending node, and adds a UGC tuple of transactions from the originator node to the ending node based on the UGC record to a blockchain database upon detecting the one or more exit conditions. In another embodiment, the UGC record is updated using a recursive push procedure. In one embodiment, the BRTS generates one or more referral rewards for each UGC tuple record based on a configured rewarding scheme.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2020
    Date of Patent: September 13, 2022
    Assignee: Lucas GC Limited
    Inventors: Wang-Chan Wong, Howard Lee
  • Publication number: 20220198491
    Abstract: Customer lifetime value (CLV)-base deep learning ensemble model for customer classification and multi-entity matching strategies is provided. In one novel aspect, the customer lifetime value (CLV)-base deep learning model (DNN) uses data mining and an ensemble of the recurrent neural network (RNN)-convolutional neural network (CNN) to identify potential prospects from lead generation, predicts churn/retention, predicts the next purchase, recommend strategies to keep and enhance existing customer relationships, and offer n-ary matching among prospects/customers, agents, products, and delivery strategies. In one embodiment, the CLV system obtains a CLV profile of a customer, generates, a CLV-based output for the customer using a DNN model, selects a n-ary matching for the customer based on the CLV-based output, and collects a feedback for the n-ary matching to update the n-nary matching until one or more exit conditions are met.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 23, 2020
    Publication date: June 23, 2022
    Inventors: Wang-Chan Wong, Howard Lee
  • Publication number: 20220188944
    Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for blockchain-based social media commerce referral tracking system (BRTS). In one novel aspect, the blockchain is used to support traceability and transparency for the referral tracking system that monitors transactions of one or more user generated contents (UGCs) with one or more actionable items. Traceability and transparency foster trust among participants. In one embodiment, the BRTS tracks transactions of a UGC, updates a UGC record upon detecting one or more predefined transactions at a receiving node, detects one or more exit transactions at an ending node, and adds a UGC tuple of transactions from the originator node to the ending node based on the UGC record to a blockchain database upon detecting the one or more exit conditions. In another embodiment, the UGC record is updated using a recursive push procedure. In one embodiment, the BRTS generates one or more referral rewards for each UGC tuple record based on a configured rewarding scheme.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 14, 2020
    Publication date: June 16, 2022
    Inventors: Wang-Chan Wong, Howard Lee
  • Patent number: 11308198
    Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for blockchain-based credential vault system (CVS). In one novel aspect, the CVS identifies a set of credential of a trustor, verifies each credential, and stores the verified credentials to a CVS blockchain database such that the authorized beneficiary can obtain the trustor credentials from the CVS. In one embodiment, the CVS authenticates a trustor request from a trustor, wherein a trustor record in the CVS is uniquely identified by a trustor identification in a blockchain-based database of the CVS, processes submission from the authenticated trustor to generate a set of canonical credentials using a recurrent neural network (RNN) model, performs credential verification for each generated canonical credential in the authenticated trustor submission, and appends each verified canonical credential to the trustor record in the blockchain-based database of the CVS.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2020
    Date of Patent: April 19, 2022
    Assignee: Lucas GC Limited
    Inventors: Wang-Chan Wong, Howard Lee
  • Patent number: 11295731
    Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for the AI-based computer-aided persuasion system (CAPS). The CAPS obtains inputs from both the target and the agent for an object, dynamically generates persuasion references based on analysis of the input. The CAPS obtains content output by analyzing the agent audio stream and the target audio stream using a recurrent network (RNN) model, obtains sentiment classifiers based on a convolutional neural network (CNN LSTM) model, updates a conversation matrix, and generates a persuasion reference based on the updated conversation matrix. The persuasion reference is based on an acceptance likelihood result generated from the conversation matrix using the RNN model. The CAPS further generates a target profile using DNN (deep neural net) with input of target Big Data, wherein the target profile includes one or more objects, and wherein the agent is selected based on the generated profile and one or more selected objects.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 27, 2021
    Date of Patent: April 5, 2022
    Assignee: Lucas GC Limited
    Inventors: Wang-Chan Wong, Howard Lee
  • Patent number: 11238411
    Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for adaptive recruitment computer system. In one novel aspect, the adaptive recruitment computer system generates a question bank based on a job description, selects adaptively questions from the question bank for an interview, and generates a feedback report for the candidate based on the evaluation of the candidate's answer. In one embodiment, the computer system categorizes a job requirement based on a body of knowledge (BOK) skill knowledge base, generates a question bank, selects adaptively a subset of questions from the generated question bank, wherein each question selected is based on evaluations of candidate's answers to corresponding prior questions using a recurrent neural network (RNN) model, and generates a feedback report for the candidate, wherein the feedback report using the RNN model based on evaluations of answers and a BOK candidate knowledge base, wherein the BOK candidate knowledge base receives updates from the computer system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2021
    Date of Patent: February 1, 2022
    Assignee: Lucas GC Limited
    Inventors: Wang-Chan Wong, Howard Lee
  • Patent number: 11195078
    Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for AI-based robotic automation for persuasive references. In one novel aspect, a robotic persuasive reference is generated based on a prospect product-service (P_PS) matrix, which is generated based on predictive analysis using DNN model and dynamically obtained feedbacks. In one embodiment, the DNN model is trained with customer personal profiles against associated PS revenues for each customer data set. In one embodiment, the predictive analysis uses a decision tree classifier. In one embodiment, the computer system detects one or more predefined triggering events comprising feedback information for the robotic persuasive reference and one or more predefined lifetime events, updates the P_PS matrix based and the robotic persuasive reference accordingly. In one embodiment, the feedback information is a sentiment analysis on responses from the prospect.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 6, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 7, 2021
    Assignee: Lucas GC Limited
    Inventors: Wang-Chan Wong, Howard Lee
  • Patent number: D1005545
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 15, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 21, 2023
    Assignee: ACDC LLC
    Inventor: Howard Lee