Patents by Inventor Kotaro Sakata

Kotaro Sakata 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: 20190347562
    Abstract: A user management method according to the present disclosure includes: storing (S101) appliance use information including: appliance identification information for identifying an appliance; user information for identifying a user of the appliance; and an operating state of the appliance when the appliance was used; analyzing (S102) the appliance use information stored in the storing (S101) to identify, from among a plurality of functions of the appliance, one or more first functions each having a use frequency less than or equal to a threshold value; and providing (S103) the user with a notice which prompts use of the one or more first functions identified in the analyzing (S102).
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 23, 2019
    Publication date: November 14, 2019
    Inventors: Kotaro SAKATA, Tomoaki MARUYAMA, Kenji KONDO, Hiroaki YAMAMOTO, Masayoshi TOJIMA
  • Patent number: 10402732
    Abstract: A user management method according to the present disclosure includes: storing appliance use information including: appliance identification information for identifying an appliance; user information for identifying a user of the appliance; and an operating state of the appliance when the appliance was used; analyzing the appliance use information stored in the storing to identify, from among a plurality of functions of the appliance, one or more first functions each having a use frequency less than or equal to a threshold value; and providing the user with a notice which prompts use of the one or more first functions identified in the analyzing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 8, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 3, 2019
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA
    Inventors: Kotaro Sakata, Tomoaki Maruyama, Kenji Kondo, Hiroaki Yamamoto, Masayoshi Tojima
  • Publication number: 20190068395
    Abstract: An information provision apparatus whereby information regarding a malfunction or problem that occurred during the use of a prescribed model of home appliance can be shared with users using the same model of home appliance. A device (20) has the following: a presentation-information reception unit (21) that receives presentation information generated by a server (10) and stores the presentation information in a prescribed storage unit; and a presentation unit (22) that presents the presentation information to the user of the device (20), the presentation information having been read out from the aforementioned storage unit. The presentation information indicates malfunctions or problems that occurred in devices that are the same model as the abovementioned device (20) and were being used by other users.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 31, 2018
    Publication date: February 28, 2019
    Inventor: Kotaro SAKATA
  • Patent number: 10192248
    Abstract: Provided is a server device whereby more customers are gathered at a store, and the spending per customer is increased. In a server device (50): a storage unit (54) stores charging parameters corresponding to purchase costs; a wired communication unit (53) receives information of the purchase cost which is inputted into a cash register; and a generating unit (55a) retrieves, from the charging parameters which are stored in the storage unit (54), the charging parameter corresponding to the purchase cost which is received by the wired communication unit (53), and, on the basis of the charging parameter, generates charging information which indicates either the charging time or the charging quantity at which a power outlet carries out charging.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 9, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 29, 2019
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA
    Inventors: Kotaro Sakata, Yasushi Sugiyama, Kimio Minami
  • Patent number: 10158499
    Abstract: An information provision apparatus whereby information regarding a malfunction or problem that occurred during the use of a prescribed model of a home appliance can be shared with users using the same model of the home appliance. A device (20) has the following: a presentation-information reception unit (21) that receives presentation information generated by a server (10) and stores the presentation information in a prescribed storage unit; and a presentation unit (22) that presents the presentation information to the user of the device (20), the presentation information having been read out from the aforementioned storage unit. The presentation information indicates malfunctions or problems that occurred in devices that are the same model as the above-mentioned device (20) and were being used by other users.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 1, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 18, 2018
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA
    Inventor: Kotaro Sakata
  • Publication number: 20180302466
    Abstract: An information presenting method includes: determining whether each event scheduled in a user schedule information belongs to a first event related to work activities or a second event not related to work activities; calculating a degree of fatigue based on a first total time of the first event and a second total time of the second event; searching for a free time after a current time, in which no event is scheduled, based on the user schedule information; determining a future position of the user in an event temporally adjacent to the free time based on the user schedule information; and generating presentation information about a service provider for relieving fatigue and that exists in a certain location around the future position of the user in response to a determination that the degree of fatigue is greater than or equal to a threshold value set for the user.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 20, 2018
    Publication date: October 18, 2018
    Applicant: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AME RICA
    Inventor: Kotaro SAKATA
  • Publication number: 20180216947
    Abstract: When a vehicle that can travel autonomously is dropped off, a vehicle control apparatus causes the vehicle to move to a standby place by traveling autonomously. Specifically, when the vehicle is dropped off, the vehicle control apparatus determines a moving destination among standby places, based on the current location of the vehicle, and the locations of the standby places, and vehicle-demand prediction information, and instructs the vehicle to move to the determined moving destination.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 9, 2018
    Publication date: August 2, 2018
    Inventors: KOTARO SAKATA, KIMIO MINAMI, TETSUJI FUCHIKAMI
  • Patent number: 10033802
    Abstract: An information presenting method of providing presentation information to a terminal apparatus includes acquiring user schedule information in which at least one event is registered by a user for each date and time; searching for a free time after a current time, in which no event is registered, on the basis of the user schedule information; and generating the presentation information including information indicating a benefit which the user is capable of receiving in the free time in a facility that provides a service and transmitting the presentation information to the terminal apparatus at a timing when the free time starts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 11, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 24, 2018
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA
    Inventor: Kotaro Sakata
  • Patent number: 9979612
    Abstract: Provided is a server device capable of increasing the availability of a device by urging a user who uses the device to perform actions related to maintenance service. In this server device, an information transceiver receives operation information about a device. A remaining life determination unit determines the remaining life of the device or a component of the device based on the operation information. When the determined remaining life reaches a predetermined remaining life or becomes shorter than the predetermined remaining life, a transmission destination setting unit sets a device that is possessed by a person having a predetermined relationship with the user of the device as a transmission destination for the transmission of maintenance service information based on relationship information indicating the relationship between the user of the device and another person who is not the user. The information transceiver transmits the maintenance service information to the transmission destination.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 25, 2013
    Date of Patent: May 22, 2018
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA
    Inventors: Kenji Kondo, Tomoaki Maruyama, Kotaro Sakata, Hiroaki Yamamoto, Masayoshi Tojima
  • Patent number: 9953267
    Abstract: A control method of the present disclosure is a control method of an information processing apparatus which includes a storage unit that stores predetermined resource information related to a resource required for a living activity of a user, the method including: an acquiring step of acquiring device information; an estimating step of estimating a living activity of the user; a competition extracting step of extracting a living activity group including living activities for which the resources are likely to compete among the living activities, based on the resource information; a resource judging step of judging whether a required resource has been secured for each of the living activities, based on the device information and the resource information; and an inhibition extracting step of extracting, as an inhibited living activity, a living activity for which it has been judged that the required resource has not been secured.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 25, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 24, 2018
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Tomoaki Maruyama, Kotaro Sakata, Kenji Kondo, Masayoshi Tojima, Hiroaki Yamamoto
  • Patent number: 9781190
    Abstract: A terminal apparatus includes an information receiver that receives, from a server apparatus, first webpage information, which enables a first user to specify an image to be posted on a first website, a storage that stores the received first webpage information, and an information processor that reads the first webpage information from the storage and that displays the first webpage information on a screen. In the screen, among a plurality of images, which are candidates for the image to be posted on the first website, an image selected on the basis of an image used in a second website is displayed at a position closer to the center of the screen than positions of other images are or displayed in a mode different from a mode in which the other images are displayed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 14, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 3, 2017
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA
    Inventors: Kotaro Sakata, Tomoko Taihei, Nozomu Tooyama
  • Patent number: 9741190
    Abstract: There is a need to effectively determine which users should be given priority for using a public service. A way of improving the public service can be to acquire information on congestion degree in use of the public service, to determine whether the congestion degree is higher than a specified level or not, and to transmit information that urges cease of the use of the public service being used to users who have higher utilization of the public service than other users among a plurality of users if the congestion degree is higher than the specified level.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 19, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 22, 2017
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Kotaro Sakata, Yasushi Sugiyama, Kimio Minami
  • Patent number: 9538219
    Abstract: An interest degree estimating device, which estimates a degree of interest of a user in a video displayed on a screen, includes: an eye gaze detecting unit for detecting an eye gaze direction of the user; a saliency information obtaining unit for obtaining saliency information on a saliency area having salient attractiveness in the video; and a user response analyzing unit for calculating a correlation between the saliency area specified from the obtained saliency information and the detected eye gaze direction, and estimate the degree of interest of the user in the video, the degree of interest being higher as the calculated correlation is higher.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 26, 2012
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2017
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA
    Inventors: Kotaro Sakata, Shigenori Maeda, Ryo Yonetani, Hiroaki Kawashima, Takatsugu Hirayama, Takashi Matsuyama
  • Patent number: 9531771
    Abstract: On the basis of stored recognition result information and current recipe information, there is generated presentation information that includes information indicating a second user who is executing in real-time the same cooking step of the same recipe as a cooking step of a recipe that a first user is actively executing. The generated presentation information is displayed on a display of a terminal device used by the first user via a network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 10, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2016
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA
    Inventors: Kotaro Sakata, Shohji Ohtsubo, Rinako Kamei, Nobue Narita
  • Patent number: 9402101
    Abstract: A content presenting method of the present disclosure includes: a history collecting step of collecting a viewing history of a user; a determining step of analyzing the viewing history to determine an active time segment in which an output section is in a state of being viewed; a data collecting step of collecting meta data assigned to a viewed content; an analyzing step of analyzing the meta data to extract a word representing the content; a profile generating step of generating, for each active time segment, a user profile based on the extracted word; a calculation step of calculating an estimated viewing time; and a playlist generating step of selecting contents based on the user profile generated correspondingly to the active time segment to be compatible with the estimated viewing time, to generate a playlist which defines an order in which the selected contents are played.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 12, 2014
    Date of Patent: July 26, 2016
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA
    Inventors: Yoshinori Hijikata, Kotaro Sakata, Masaki Yamauchi
  • Publication number: 20160164697
    Abstract: An information provision apparatus whereby information regarding a malfunction or problem that occurred during the use of a prescribed model of a home appliance can be shared with users using the same model of the home appliance. A device (20) has the following: a presentation-information reception unit (21) that receives presentation information generated by a server (10) and stores the presentation information in a prescribed storage unit; and a presentation unit (22) that presents the presentation information to the user of the device (20), the presentation information having been read out from the aforementioned storage unit. The presentation information indicates malfunctions or problems that occurred in devices that are the same model as the above-mentioned device (20) and were being used by other users.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 1, 2014
    Publication date: June 9, 2016
    Inventor: Kotaro SAKATA
  • Publication number: 20160133076
    Abstract: There is a need to effectively determine which users should be given priority for using a public service. A way of improving the public service can be to acquire information on congestion degree in use of the public service, to determine whether the congestion degree is higher than a specified level or not, and to transmit information that urges cease of the use of the public service being used to users who have higher utilization of the public service than other users among a plurality of users if the congestion degree is higher than the specified level.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 19, 2015
    Publication date: May 12, 2016
    Inventors: KOTARO SAKATA, YASUSHI SUGIYAMA, KIMIO MINAMI
  • Publication number: 20160132837
    Abstract: It is necessary to effectively encourage the user to take an action without making the user feel inconvenience, regardless of the charge state of the device held by the user. A way of improved the inducement of user's conduct can be to retrieve information indicating a schedule or task of the user, to retrieve charge state information indicating a device held by the user, to determine a facility to which the user is to be guided, on the basis of the information indicating the schedule or task of the user and the charge state information, and to output information indicating the determined facility.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 9, 2015
    Publication date: May 12, 2016
    Inventors: KOTARO SAKATA, KIMIO MINAMI, YASUSHI SUGIYAMA
  • Patent number: 9311964
    Abstract: In a case where a chapter that introduces a predetermined non-heating step is being played back and execution of the non-heating step has not been completed, a moving image playback control section included in a terminal apparatus controls playback so that the chapter that is being played back is repeated or paused, and when execution of the non-heating step is completed, a subsequent chapter is played back.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 8, 2014
    Date of Patent: April 12, 2016
    Assignee: PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA
    Inventors: Shohji Ohtsubo, Koji Nakanishi, Kotaro Sakata, Hiromi Iida, Takuya Matsumoto, Norihiro Matsui
  • Publication number: 20150317706
    Abstract: Provided is a server device whereby more customers are gathered at a store, and the spending per customer is increased. In a server device (50): a storage unit (54) stores charging parameters corresponding to purchase costs; a wired communication unit (53) receives information of the purchase cost which is inputted into a cash register; and a generating unit (55a) retrieves, from the charging parameters which are stored in the storage unit (54), the charging parameter corresponding to the purchase cost which is received by the wired communication unit (53), and, on the basis of the charging parameter, generates charging information which indicates either the charging time or the charging quantity at which a power outlet carries out charging.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 9, 2014
    Publication date: November 5, 2015
    Inventors: Kotaro SAKATA, Yasushi SUGIYAMA, Kimio MINAMI