Patents by Inventor John Herbert Martin WILLIAMS

John Herbert Martin WILLIAMS 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: 20240143928
    Abstract: The automated generation of a natural language explanation of what code does. The code is structured to perform tasks because the code itself semantically specifies that those tasks are to be performed. A task-centric representation of the code is automatically generated that includes a task representation of each of some or all of the tasks to be performed as specified by the code. Natural language utterances are then automatically generated by generating a corresponding natural language utterance that semantically describes in natural language the corresponding task represented by the corresponding task representation. Controls are rendered for each natural language utterance that each permit a user to edit the corresponding natural language utterance. After editing, the code itself may be automatically modified or regenerated to reflect the changed natural language utterances.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 28, 2022
    Publication date: May 2, 2024
    Inventors: Benjamin Goth ZORN, Carina Suzana NEGREANU, Advait SARKAR, Andrew Donald GORDON, John Herbert Martin WILLIAMS, Xieyang LIU, Neil Blunt TORONTO, Sruti Srinivasa RAGAVAN, Brian Paul SLININGER
  • Patent number: 11636254
    Abstract: A system for provenance aware editing for propagating edits back to spreadsheets is provided. The system receives an indication of an operation to be performed at an output location. The operation indicates one or more input locations on a spreadsheet that each provides an input value. The input values are accessed and tagged with their corresponding input location on the spreadsheet. Based on the operation and the input value from each of the one or more input locations, the system derives and displays the result at the output location. A user edit to the result is received at the output location, which causes transmission of a propagation request to change the input value at one or more of the tagged input locations. Using where-provenance associated with the tagged input locations, the system propagates the user edit to one or more of the tagged input locations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 5, 2021
    Date of Patent: April 25, 2023
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: John Herbert Martin Williams, Andrew Donald Gordon, Joseph McDaid, Benjamin Edward Rampson, Brian Jones
  • Patent number: 11461544
    Abstract: A spreadsheet application displays a spreadsheet of cells in tabular form. User input is received specifying an input range of cells of the spreadsheet, a destination range of cells of the spreadsheet and a local modification. A memory stores a representation of the spreadsheet indicating formatting, values and formulas. An update of the representation is computed by applying the local modifications to the representation. Values of cells of the input range of the spreadsheet are calculated by using the updated representation and the calculated values are displayed at the destination range.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 14, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 4, 2022
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Advait Sarkar, Andrew Donald Gordon, John Herbert Martin Williams
  • Publication number: 20220253597
    Abstract: A system for provenance aware editing for propagating edits back to spreadsheets is provided. The system receives an indication of an operation to be performed at an output location. The operation indicates one or more input locations on a spreadsheet that each provides an input value. The input values are accessed and tagged with their corresponding input location on the spreadsheet. Based on the operation and the input value from each of the one or more input locations, the system derives and displays the result at the output location. A user edit to the result is received at the output location, which causes transmission of a propagation request to change the input value at one or more of the tagged input locations. Using where-provenance associated with the tagged input locations, the system propagates the user edit to one or more of the tagged input locations.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 5, 2021
    Publication date: August 11, 2022
    Inventors: John Herbert Martin Williams, Andrew Donald Gordon, Joseph McDaid, Benjamin Edward Rampson, Brian Jones
  • Publication number: 20210256205
    Abstract: A spreadsheet application displays a spreadsheet of cells in tabular form. User input is received specifying an input range of cells of the spreadsheet, a destination range of cells of the spreadsheet and a local modification. A memory stores a representation of the spreadsheet indicating formatting, values and formulas. An update of the representation is computed by applying the local modifications to the representation. Values of cells of the input range of the spreadsheet are calculated by using the updated representation and the calculated values are displayed at the destination range.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 14, 2020
    Publication date: August 19, 2021
    Inventors: Advait SARKAR, Andrew Donald GORDON, John Herbert Martin WILLIAMS