Patents by Inventor Jiafan Ou

Jiafan Ou 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: 11468471
    Abstract: Systems and methods are presented for carrying out a task to an expanded group of users on behalf of a third party. In operation, an online service receives task information corresponding to a task from a third party. Additionally, the online service receives a seed group of users from the third party. The online service determines an intersection between the seed group of users and the online service's corpus of users. This intersection of users is then used to identify an expanded set of users of the online service's corpus of users. The online service then carries out the task on behalf of the third party, targeting the expanded set of users.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 8, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 11, 2022
    Assignee: Pinterest, Inc.
    Inventors: Stephanie deWet, Mukund Narasimhan, Jiafan Ou, Jian Huang
  • Publication number: 20200184515
    Abstract: Systems and methods are presented for carrying out a task to an expanded group of users on behalf of a third party. In operation, an online service receives task information corresponding to a task from a third party. Additionally, the online service receives a seed group of users from the third party. The online service determines an intersection between the seed group of users and the online service's corpus of users. This intersection of users is then used to identify an expanded set of users of the online service's corpus of users. The online service then carries out the task on behalf of the third party, targeting the expanded set of users.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 8, 2019
    Publication date: June 11, 2020
    Inventors: Stephanie deWet, Mukund Narasimhan, Jiafan Ou, Jian Huang
  • Patent number: 9794423
    Abstract: Described is a technology by which a user hums, sings or otherwise plays a user-provided rendition of a ringtone (or ringback tone) through a mobile telephone to a ringtone search service (e.g., a WAP, interactive voice response or SMS-based search platform). The service matches features of the user's rendition against features of actual ringtones to determine one or more matching candidate ringtones for downloading. Features may include pitch contours (up or down), pitch intervals and durations of notes. Matching candidates may be ranked based on the determined similarity, possibly in conjunction with weighting criterion such as the popularity of the ringtone and/or the importance of the matched part. The candidate set may be augmented with other ringtones independent of the matching, such as the most popular ones downloaded by other users, ringtones from similar artists, and so forth.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 15, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 17, 2017
    Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
    Inventors: Lie Lu, Yutao Xie, Xing Xie, Jiafan Ou, Ruihao Weng
  • Publication number: 20160323460
    Abstract: Described is a technology by which a user hums, sings or otherwise plays a user-provided rendition of a ringtone (or ringback tone) through a mobile telephone to a ringtone search service (e.g., a WAP, interactive voice response or SMS-based search platform). The service matches features of the user's rendition against features of actual ringtones to determine one or more matching candidate ringtones for downloading. Features may include pitch contours (up or down), pitch intervals and durations of notes. Matching candidates may be ranked based on the determined similarity, possibly in conjunction with weighting criterion such as the popularity of the ringtone and/or the importance of the matched part. The candidate set may be augmented with other ringtones independent of the matching, such as the most popular ones downloaded by other users, ringtones from similar artists, and so forth.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 15, 2016
    Publication date: November 3, 2016
    Inventors: Lie LU, Yutao XIE, Xing XIE, Jiafan OU, Ruihao WENG
  • Patent number: 9396257
    Abstract: Described is a technology by which a user hums, sings or otherwise plays a user-provided rendition of a ringtone (or ringback tone) through a mobile telephone to a ringtone search service (e.g., a WAP, interactive voice response or SMS-based search platform). The service matches features of the user's rendition against features of actual ringtones to determine one or more matching candidate ringtones for downloading. Features may include pitch contours (up or down), pitch intervals and durations of notes. Matching candidates may be ranked based on the determined similarity, possibly in conjunction with weighting criterion such as the popularity of the ringtone and/or the importance of the matched part. The candidate set may be augmented with other ringtones independent of the matching, such as the most popular ones downloaded by other users, ringtones from similar artists, and so forth.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 2011
    Date of Patent: July 19, 2016
    Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
    Inventors: Lie Lu, Yutao Xie, Xing Xie, Jiafan Ou, Ruihao Weng
  • Publication number: 20120101815
    Abstract: Described is a technology by which a user hums, sings or otherwise plays a user-provided rendition of a ringtone (or ringback tone) through a mobile telephone to a ringtone search service (e.g., a WAP, interactive voice response or SMS-based search platform). The service matches features of the user's rendition against features of actual ringtones to determine one or more matching candidate ringtones for downloading. Features may include pitch contours (up or down), pitch intervals and durations of notes. Matching candidates may be ranked based on the determined similarity, possibly in conjunction with weighting criterion such as the popularity of the ringtone and/or the importance of the matched part. The candidate set may be augmented with other ringtones independent of the matching, such as the most popular ones downloaded by other users, ringtones from similar artists, and so forth.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 29, 2011
    Publication date: April 26, 2012
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Lie LU, Yutao XIE, Sing XIE, Jiafan OU, Ruihao WENG
  • Patent number: 8116746
    Abstract: Described is a technology by which a user hums, sings or otherwise plays a user-provided rendition of a ringtone (or ringback tone) through a mobile telephone to a ringtone search service (e.g., a WAP, interactive voice response or SMS-based search platform). The service matches features of the user's rendition against features of actual ringtones to determine one or more matching candidate ringtones for downloading. Features may include pitch contours (up or down), pitch intervals and durations of notes. Matching candidates may be ranked based on the determined similarity, possibly in conjunction with weighting criterion such as the popularity of the ringtone and/or the importance of the matched part. The candidate set may be augmented with other ringtones independent of the matching, such as the most popular ones downloaded by other users, ringtones from similar artists, and so forth.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 2007
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2012
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Lie Lu, Yutao Xie, Xing Xie, Jiafan Ou, Ruihao Weng
  • Publication number: 20080215319
    Abstract: Described is a technology by which a user hums, sings or otherwise plays a user-provided rendition of a ringtone (or ringback tone) through a mobile telephone to a ringtone search service (e.g., a WAP, interactive voice response or SMS-based search platform). The service matches features of the user's rendition against features of actual ringtones to determine one or more matching candidate ringtones for downloading. Features may include pitch contours (up or down), pitch intervals and durations of notes. Matching candidates may be ranked based on the determined similarity, possibly in conjunction with weighting criterion such as the popularity of the ringtone and/or the importance of the matched part. The candidate set may be augmented with other ringtones independent of the matching, such as the most popular ones downloaded by other users, ringtones from similar artists, and so forth.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 1, 2007
    Publication date: September 4, 2008
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Lie Lu, Yutao Xie, Xing Xie, Jiafan Ou, Ruihao Weng