Patents by Inventor Nicholas J. A. Harvey
Nicholas J. A. Harvey 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).
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Publication number: 20140074583Abstract: The present invention includes a social networking system wherein the users may be broadly categorized as payor users or payee users. Payor users are generally individuals or students, while payee users generally businesses or charities. Each user in the social networking system of the present invention is associated with financial data. The financial data is thereafter used to facilitate commercial transactions and transfer donations within the social networking system between users, generally from a payee user to a payor user. The payor user is not required to enter financial data or log in to an additional system to facilitate the transaction. The transaction is facilitated entirely within the constructs of the social networking system. Pursuant to this, payee users may add products and services to their associated profiles to vend their products and services from within the social networking system.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 10, 2012Publication date: March 13, 2014Applicant: NICER AND AFFILIATES, LTD.Inventors: Nicholas J. Harvey, Christopher J. Ippolito
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Patent number: 8250220Abstract: A system and method for identifying network endpoints that provide a service of interest orders endpoints according to their network proximity to a requesting client. The requesting client may then contact the closest available providing endpoint, thus increasing the efficiency of usage of network resources while decreasing latency and enhancing reliability. In an embodiment of the invention, when a connection to the nearest providing endpoint cannot be established, a mechanism for locating a next-closest alternative endpoint is provided.Type: GrantFiled: January 25, 2012Date of Patent: August 21, 2012Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Jeffrey B. Parham, Levon A. Esibov, Nicholas J. Harvey, William B. Lees
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Publication number: 20120124223Abstract: A system and method for identifying network endpoints that provide a service of interest orders endpoints according to their network proximity to a requesting client. The requesting client may then contact the closest available providing endpoint, thus increasing the efficiency of usage of network resources while decreasing latency and enhancing reliability. In an embodiment of the invention, when a connection to the nearest providing endpoint cannot be established, a mechanism for locating a next-closest alternative endpoint is provided.Type: ApplicationFiled: January 25, 2012Publication date: May 17, 2012Applicant: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Jeffrey B. Parham, Levon A. Esibov, Nicholas J. Harvey, William B. Lees
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Patent number: 8145699Abstract: A system and method for identifying network endpoints that provide a service of interest orders endpoints according to their network proximity to a requesting client. The requesting client may then contact the closest available providing endpoint, thus increasing the efficiency of usage of network resources while decreasing latency and enhancing reliability. In an embodiment of the invention, when a connection to the nearest providing endpoint cannot be established, a mechanism for locating a next-closest alternative endpoint is provided.Type: GrantFiled: May 30, 2003Date of Patent: March 27, 2012Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Jeffrey B. Parham, Levon A. Esibov, Nicholas J. Harvey, William B. Lees
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System and method for creating improved overlay network with an efficient distributed data structure
Patent number: 7613796Abstract: A system and method for using skip nets to build and maintain overlay networks for peer-to-peer systems. A skip net is a distributed data structure that can be used to avoid some of the disadvantages of distributed hash tables by organizing data by key ordering. Skip nets can use logarithmic state per node and probabilistically support searches, insertions and deletions in logarithmic time.Type: GrantFiled: February 3, 2003Date of Patent: November 3, 2009Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Nicholas J. Harvey, Michael B. Jones, Stefan Saroiu, Marvin M. Theimer, Alastair Wolman, Atul Adya -
Patent number: 7551552Abstract: A guaranteed distributed failure notification method is described, wherein a failure notification (FN) facility allows applications using the facility to create FN groups to which the application associates an application state. The application registers failure handlers with the FN facility on nodes in the FN group; each failure handler is associated with a specific FN group. When, on a given node, the FN facility learns of a failure in the FN group, the facility executes the associated failure handler on that node. System failures detected by the application are signaled to other FN group members using the facility. The facility detects system failures that occur in an overlay network on which the facility is implemented, and signals a failure notification to the other FN group members.Type: GrantFiled: October 17, 2003Date of Patent: June 23, 2009Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: John Dunagan, Nicholas J. A. Harvey, Michael B. Jones, Dejan Kostić, Marvin M. Theimer, Alastair Wolman
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Patent number: 7499413Abstract: A method for designating communication paths in a computer network is provided, in which communication paths are designated for the transmission of data throughout a network. The network may have both recipient computers, which are the intended recipients of the data, and intermediary computers, which are not the intended recipients, but merely relay the data. Each intermediary computer is grouped with the “closest” recipient computer (i.e. the recipient computer with whom it is “least expensive” to communicate). Communication paths between the resulting groups are then identified. A representation of the network is then created. The representation replaces the intermediary computers with the inter-group communication paths, so that the inter-group communication paths appear to pass directly through the locations occupied by the intermediary computers. The created representation is then further processed so that the “least expensive” communication paths may be designated.Type: GrantFiled: January 26, 2005Date of Patent: March 3, 2009Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Jeffrey B. Parham, Mark R. Brown, William B. Lees, Van H. Vu, Laszlo Lovasz, Nicholas J. A. Harvey, Katalin Vesztergombi
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Patent number: 7165103Abstract: A method of finding an optimal match between clients and servers under given matching constraints utilizes a bipartite diagram in which the clients are presented as vertices on one side, the servers as vertices on the other side, and each possible client-server pairing allowed under the matching constraints as an edge connecting the vertices representing the client and the server. After an initial round of assignments is performed, the assignments are optimized by an optimization operation that iteratively applies a reassignment process. The reassignment process searches for a chain of servers starting with a server having a highest number of clients and ends with another server with a client number less than that of the first server by at least two, with each server in the chain except the end server having a client reassignable to the next server in the chain.Type: GrantFiled: June 26, 2002Date of Patent: January 16, 2007Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Nicholas J. Harvey, Laszlo Lovasz
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Patent number: 6879564Abstract: A method for designating communication paths in a computer network is provided, in which communication paths are designated for the transmission of data throughout a network. The network may have both recipient computers, which are the intended recipients of the data, and intermediary computers, which are not the intended recipients, but merely relay the data. Each intermediary computer is grouped with the “closest” recipient computer (i.e. the recipient computer with whom it is “least expensive” to communicate). Communication paths between the resulting groups are then identified. A representation of the network is then created. The representation replaces the intermediary computers with the inter-group communication paths, so that the inter-group communication paths appear to pass directly through the locations occupied by the intermediary computers. The created representation is then further processed so that the “least expensive” communication paths may be designated.Type: GrantFiled: February 28, 2001Date of Patent: April 12, 2005Assignee: Microsoft Corp.Inventors: Jeffrey B. Parham, Mark R. Brown, William B. Lees, Van H. Vu, Laszlo Lovasz, Nicholas J. A. Harvey, Katalin Vesztergombi
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Publication number: 20040243667Abstract: A system and method for identifying network endpoints that provide a service of interest orders endpoints according to their network proximity to a requesting client. The requesting client may then contact the closest available providing endpoint, thus increasing the efficiency of usage of network resources while decreasing latency and enhancing reliability. In an embodiment of the invention, when a connection to the nearest providing endpoint cannot be established, a mechanism for locating a next-closest alternative endpoint is provided.Type: ApplicationFiled: May 30, 2003Publication date: December 2, 2004Applicant: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Jeffrey B. Parham, Levon A. Esibov, Nicholas J. Harvey, William B. Lees
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System and method for creating improved overlay network with an efficient distributed data structure
Publication number: 20040054807Abstract: A system and method for using skip nets to build and maintain overlay networks for peer-to-peer systems. A skip net is a distributed data structure that can be used to avoid some of the disadvantages of distributed hash tables by organizing data by key ordering. Skip nets can use logarithmic state per node and probabilistically support searches, insertions and deletions in logarithmic time.Type: ApplicationFiled: February 3, 2003Publication date: March 18, 2004Applicant: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Nicholas J. Harvey, Michael B. Jones, Stefan Saroiu, Marvin M. Theimer, Alastair Wolman, Atul Adya -
Publication number: 20040003066Abstract: A method of finding an optimal match between clients and servers under given matching constraints utilizes a bipartite diagram in which the clients are presented as vertices on one side, the servers as vertices on the other side, and each possible client-server pairing allowed under the matching constraints as an edge connecting the vertices representing the client and the server. After an initial round of assignments is performed, the assignments are optimized by an optimization operation that iteratively applies a reassignment process. The reassignment process searches for a chain of servers starting with a server having a highest number of clients and ends with another server with a client number less than that of the first server by at least two, with each server in the chain except the end server having a client reassignable to the next server in the chain.Type: ApplicationFiled: June 26, 2002Publication date: January 1, 2004Applicant: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Nicholas J. Harvey, Laszlo Lovasz
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Publication number: 20020120770Abstract: A method for designating communication paths in a computer network is provided, in which communication paths are designated for the transmission of data throughout a network. The network may have both recipient computers, which are the intended recipients of the data, and intermediary computers, which are not the intended recipients, but merely relay the data. Each intermediary computer is grouped with the “closest” recipient computer (i.e. the recipient computer with whom it is “least expensive” to communicate). Communication paths between the resulting groups are then identified. A representation of the network is then created. The representation replaces the intermediary computers with the inter-group communication paths, so that the inter-group communication paths appear to pass directly through the locations occupied by the intermediary computers. The created representation is then further processed so that the “least expensive” communication paths may be designated.Type: ApplicationFiled: February 28, 2001Publication date: August 29, 2002Inventors: Jeffrey B. Parham, Mark R. Brown, William B. Lees, Van H. Vu, Laszlo Lovasz, Nicholas J.A. Harvey, Katalin Vesztergombi