Patents by Inventor Michael E Flaster

Michael E Flaster 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: 10248662
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for generating descriptive text for images. In one aspect, a method includes identifying a set of seed descriptors for an image in a document that is hosted on a website. For each seed descriptor, structure information is generated that specifies a structure of the document with respect to the image and the seed descriptor. One or more templates are generated for each seed descriptor using the structure information for the seed descriptor. Each template can include image location information, document structure information, image feature information, and a generative rule that generates descriptive text for other images in other documents. Descriptive text for other images is generated using the templates and the other documents. The descriptive text is associated with the images.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 20, 2018
    Date of Patent: April 2, 2019
    Assignee: Google LLC
    Inventors: Yonghui Wu, Michael E. Flaster, Randall G. Keller, Paul Haahr
  • Publication number: 20180210895
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for generating descriptive text for images. In one aspect, a method includes identifying a set of seed descriptors for an image in a document that is hosted on a website. For each seed descriptor, structure information is generated that specifies a structure of the document with respect to the image and the seed descriptor. One or more templates are generated for each seed descriptor using the structure information for the seed descriptor. Each template can include image location information, document structure information, image feature information, and a generative rule that generates descriptive text for other images in other documents. Descriptive text for other images is generated using the templates and the other documents. The descriptive text is associated with the images.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 20, 2018
    Publication date: July 26, 2018
    Inventors: Yonghui Wu, Michael E. Flaster, Randall G. Keller, Paul Haahr
  • Patent number: 9971790
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for generating descriptive text for images. In one aspect, a method includes identifying a set of seed descriptors for an image in a document that is hosted on a website. For each seed descriptor, structure information is generated that specifies a structure of the document with respect to the image and the seed descriptor. One or more templates are generated for each seed descriptor using the structure information for the seed descriptor. Each template can include image location information, document structure information, image feature information, and a generative rule that generates descriptive text for other images in other documents. Descriptive text for other images is generated using the templates and the other documents. The descriptive text is associated with the images.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: May 15, 2018
    Assignee: Google LLC
    Inventors: Yonghui Wu, Michael E. Flaster, Randall G. Keller, Paul Haahr
  • Patent number: 9436747
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, for generating synthetic queries using seed queries and structural similarity between documents are described. In one aspect, a method includes identifying embedded coding fragments (e.g., HTML tag) from a structured document and a seed query; generating one or more query templates, each query template corresponding to at least one coding fragment, the query template including a generative rule to be used in generating candidate synthetic queries; generating the candidate synthetic queries by applying the query templates to other documents that are hosted on the same web site as the document; identifying terms that match structure of the query templates as candidate synthetic queries; measuring a performance for each of the candidate synthetic queries; and designating as synthetic queries the candidate synthetic queries that have performance measurements exceeding a performance threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 25, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 6, 2016
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Steven D. Baker, Michael E. Flaster, Nitin Gupta, Paul Haahr, Srinivasan Venkatachary, Yonghui Wu
  • Patent number: 9208233
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for using synthetic descriptive text to rank search results. One of the methods includes receiving a search query from a user device; receiving data identifying a plurality of search result resources and respective initial scores for each of the search result resources; determining, from a search engine index, that a particular search result resource of the plurality of search result resources is associated with one or more pieces of synthetic descriptive text, wherein each piece of synthetic descriptive text is generated by applying a respective template to a respective linking resource that links to the particular search result resource; computing a synthetic descriptive text score for the particular search result resource; and adjusting the initial score for the particular search result resource based at least in part on the synthetic descriptive text score.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2015
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Sundeep Tirumalareddy, Michael E. Flaster, Eric Lehman, Paul Haahr
  • Patent number: 9208232
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for generating synthetic descriptive text. One of the methods includes identifying a group of linking resources, wherein each of the linking resources includes a link to a respective target resource; determining, from a search engine index, that at least some of the target resources are associated with seed queries; generating term location information that identifies, for each seed query, locations of terms from the seed query in the linking resource that links to the target resource associated with the seed query; generating synthetic descriptive text for the target resources based on the term location information; and associating the synthetic descriptive text with the target resources in the search engine index.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2015
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Sundeep Tirumalareddy, Michael E. Flaster, Eric Lehman, Paul Haahr, Yonghui Wu
  • Publication number: 20150161086
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for generating descriptive text for images. In one aspect, a method includes identifying a set of seed descriptors for an image in a document that is hosted on a website. For each seed descriptor, structure information is generated that specifies a structure of the document with respect to the image and the seed descriptor. One or more templates are generated for each seed descriptor using the structure information for the seed descriptor. Each template can include image location information, document structure information, image feature information, and a generative rule that generates descriptive text for other images in other documents. Descriptive text for other images is generated using the templates and the other documents. The descriptive text is associated with the images.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 14, 2014
    Publication date: June 11, 2015
    Applicant: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Yonghui Wu, Michael E. Flaster, Randall G. Keller, Paul Haahr
  • Patent number: 8224863
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided for identifying constraint violation repairs in data that is comprised of a plurality of records, where each record has a plurality of cells. A database is processed, based on a plurality of constraints that data in the database must satisfy. At least one constraint violation to be resolved is identified based on a cost of repair and the corresponding records to be resolved and equivalent cells are identified in the data that violate the identified at least one constraint violation. A value for each of the equivalent cells can optionally be determined, and the determined value can be assigned to each of the equivalent cells. The at least one constraint violation selected for resolution may be, for example, the constraint violation with a lowest cost. The cost of repairing a constraint is based on a distance metric between the attributes values.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 2004
    Date of Patent: July 17, 2012
    Assignee: Alcatel Lucent
    Inventors: Philip L. Bohannon, Wenfei Fan, Michael E. Flaster, Rajeev Rastogi
  • Patent number: 7921072
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided for mapping XML source documents to target documents using schema embeddings. According to one aspect of the invention, one or more edges in the one or more source schemas are mapped to one or more paths in at least one target schema. The disclosed mapping techniques ensure that (i) one or more source documents that conform to one or more of the source schemas can be recovered from one or more target documents that conform to the at least one target schema, if a mapping exists between the one or more of the source schemas and the at least one target schema; (ii) queries on one or more source documents that conform to one or more of the source schemas in a given query language can be answered on one or more target documents that conform to the at least one target schema; and (iii) the one or more target documents conform to a target schema.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 31, 2005
    Date of Patent: April 5, 2011
    Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc.
    Inventors: Philip L. Bohannon, Wenfei Fan, Michael E. Flaster, Suryanarayan Perinkulam
  • Patent number: 7436310
    Abstract: An RF antenna grid design in which the antenna array is installed on a patch panel cover allows for the retrofitting of an RF antenna grid on existing patch panel based systems without disrupting network operation. An apparatus for determining connectivity between device ports on a patch panel and cable ends having corresponding RFID tags attached thereto comprises a patch panel having a plurality of device ports and a patch panel cover comprising a plurality of RFID antennas, where each of the RFID antennas comprises one or more protruding portions thereof, each of the protruding portions of the RFID antennas being in close physical proximity to one or more of the plurality of device ports when the patch panel cover is positioned in a fixed positional relationship to the patch panel (e.g., when the patch panel cover is “attached” to the patch panel).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2006
    Date of Patent: October 14, 2008
    Assignee: Lucent Technologies Inc.
    Inventors: Michael E Flaster, Clifford E Martin, Wee Teck Ng, Cuong Tran
  • Publication number: 20080133443
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided for inferring regular expressions that parse and extract information from line-oriented data. A regular expression is generated that matches a line of text by: evaluating a plurality of characters of the line of text to identify one or more domains associated with each of the plurality of characters; assigning a run-length to each of the identified domains; populating a data structure having a data position corresponding to each of the characters with the identified domains and corresponding run-lengths; and generating the regular expression based on the data structure.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 30, 2006
    Publication date: June 5, 2008
    Inventors: Philip L. Bohannon, Michael E. Flaster
  • Publication number: 20080027930
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided for improved schema mapping of source documents to target documents. A list of matches are generated between at least one source table and at least one target table. One or more of the matches are annotated with a logical condition providing a context in which the match applies. Matches can be annotated with a logical condition, for example, by generating a set of candidate view conditions, C, to be applied to the one or more source tables. A schema match algorithm can generate the list of matches. Candidate logical conditions can be identified, for example, by (i) creating a set of views for categorical attributes in the tables and adding a view for each partitioning of the attribute values; (ii) using a classifier built on target attribute values; or (iii) evaluating internal features of a source table.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 31, 2006
    Publication date: January 31, 2008
    Inventors: Philip L. Bohannon, Wenfei Fan, Michael E. Flaster
  • Patent number: 7103884
    Abstract: A recovery process allows a recovering replica in a replicated data storage system to recover from a current replica the changes to the data that it has missed during a failure while, at the same time, the system is processing new requests issued by the source. Sequence numbers, assigned by the source to write requests and stored by each replica in association with the data item that the write request modifies, are used by the recovery process to determine when a replica has missed one or more write requests and requires recovery. During recovery, the recovering replica ignores all requests directly received from the source, and replaces the contents of a data item with the data received from the current replica only if the newly received data item has a higher sequence number than the corresponding sequence number of the data item already stored in the recovering replica. It also updates data items in response to new write requests that are forwarded to it by the current replica.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 2002
    Date of Patent: September 5, 2006
    Assignee: Lucent Technologies Inc.
    Inventors: Jeffrey K Fellin, Michael E Flaster, Eran Gabber, Fengrui Gu
  • Publication number: 20040078637
    Abstract: A recovery process allows a recovering replica in a replicated data storage system to recover from a current replica the changes to the data that it has missed during a failure while, at the same time, the system is processing new requests issued by the source. Sequence numbers, assigned by the source to write requests and stored by each replica in association with the data item that the write request modifies, are used by the recovery process to determine when a replica has missed one or more write requests and requires recovery. During recovery, the recovering replica ignores all requests directly received from the source, and replaces the contents of a data item with the data received from the current replica only if the newly received data item has a higher sequence number than the corresponding sequence number of the data item already stored in the recovering replica. It also updates data items in response to new write requests that are forwarded to it by the current replica.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 27, 2002
    Publication date: April 22, 2004
    Inventors: Jeffrey K. Fellin, Michael E. Flaster, Eran Gabber, Fengrui Gu