Patents by Inventor Patrick Brendan Maginnis

Patrick Brendan Maginnis 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: 11107120
    Abstract: A social networking system receives information describing locations associated with a plurality of its users. Based on information identifying each user and a location associated with each user, the social networking system generates and stores hash values. For example, the social networking system maintains various geo-tiles that each identify geographic areas and generates a hash value based on a user identifier and an identifier of a geo-tile including the location associated with the user. Based on the hash values and locations associated with one or more users, the online system determines a number of unique users associated with locations included in a geographic region. When determining the number of unique users, the online system accounts for a rate at which the online system updates location information associated with various users.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 14, 2019
    Date of Patent: August 31, 2021
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Charles Joseph Hughes, Xiao Zhang, Patrick Brendan Maginnis
  • Patent number: 10686744
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a computing device selects a number of location updates from users which corresponds to a place. Each location update includes data indicating a geographic location that a user was at, and a time corresponding to when the user was at the geographic location. The computing device selects a first subset of the location updates which have geographic locations within a particular geographic area. For each location update in the first subset, the computing device determines a corresponding user and time. The computing device selects a second subset of location updates, each location update in the second subset corresponding to a user from the first subset, and a time within a threshold time of the time of the location update in the first subset. The computing device generates a probability map based on a distribution of geographic locations corresponding to the location updates in the second subset.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 18, 2019
    Date of Patent: June 16, 2020
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Patrick Brendan Maginnis, Michael John McKenzie Toksvig, Erick Tseng
  • Patent number: 10366406
    Abstract: A social networking system receives information describing locations associated with a plurality of its users. Based on information identifying each user and a location associated with each user, the social networking system generates and stores hash values. For example, the social networking system maintains various geo-tiles that each identify geographic areas and generates a hash value based on a user identifier and an identifier of a geo-tile including the location associated with the user. Based on the hash values and locations associated with one or more users, the online system determines a number of unique users associated with locations included in a geographic region. When determining the number of unique users, the online system accounts for a rate at which the online system updates location information associated with various users.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 8, 2014
    Date of Patent: July 30, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Charles Joseph Hughes, Xiao Zhang, Patrick Brendan Maginnis
  • Patent number: 10311465
    Abstract: An online system estimates a lift in foot traffic at a store in response to an advertisement campaign at the online system. The online system identifies a physical location for the store and obtains location data for a base group of users and a lifted group of users, where the lifted group of users receives advertisements associated with the store and the base group of users does not. The online system computes a distance between the location of the store and the user's location to create a base distance array for the base group and a lifted distance array for the lifted group. The online system then determines an aggregate value that represents a measure of a number of users visiting the store for each of the base distance array and the lifted distance array, and estimates a lift in foot traffic by comparing the two aggregate values.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 17, 2015
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventor: Patrick Brendan Maginnis
  • Publication number: 20190158445
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a computing device selects a number of location updates from users which corresponds to a place. Each location update includes data indicating a geographic location that a user was at, and a time corresponding to when the user was at the geographic location. The computing device selects a first subset of the location updates which have geographic locations within a particular geographic area. For each location update in the first subset, the computing device determines a corresponding user and time. The computing device selects a second subset of location updates, each location update in the second subset corresponding to a user from the first subset, and a time within a threshold time of the time of the location update in the first subset. The computing device generates a probability map based on a distribution of geographic locations corresponding to the location updates in the second subset.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 18, 2019
    Publication date: May 23, 2019
    Inventors: Patrick Brendan Maginnis, Michael John McKenzie Toksvig, Erick Tseng
  • Patent number: 10187343
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a computing device selects a number of location updates from users which corresponds to a place. Each location update includes data indicating a geographic location that a user was at, and a time corresponding to when the user was at the geographic location. The computing device selects a first subset of the location updates which have geographic locations within a particular geographic area. For each location update in the first subset, the computing device determines a corresponding user and time. The computing device selects a second subset of location updates, each location update in the second subset corresponding to a user from the first subset, and a time within a threshold time of the time of the location update in the first subset. The computing device generates a probability map based on a distribution of geographic locations corresponding to the location updates in the second subset.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 18, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 22, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Patrick Brendan Maginnis, Michael John McKenzie Toksvig, Erick Tseng
  • Publication number: 20160371722
    Abstract: An online system estimates a lift in foot traffic at a store in response to an advertisement campaign at the online system. The online system identifies a physical location for the store and obtains location data for a base group of users and a lifted group of users, where the lifted group of users receives advertisements associated with the store and the base group of users does not. The online system computes a distance between the location of the store and the user's location to create a base distance array for the base group and a lifted distance array for the lifted group. The online system then determines an aggregate value that represents a measure of a number of users visiting the store for each of the base distance array and the lifted distance array, and estimates a lift in foot traffic by comparing the two aggregate values.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 17, 2015
    Publication date: December 22, 2016
    Inventor: Patrick Brendan Maginnis
  • Publication number: 20160182424
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a computing device selects a number of location updates from users which corresponds to a place. Each location update includes data indicating a geographic location that a user was at, and a time corresponding to when the user was at the geographic location. The computing device selects a first subset of the location updates which have geographic locations within a particular geographic area. For each location update in the first subset, the computing device determines a corresponding user and time. The computing device selects a second subset of location updates, each location update in the second subset corresponding to a user from the first subset, and a time within a threshold time of the time of the location update in the first subset. The computing device generates a probability map based on a distribution of geographic locations corresponding to the location updates in the second subset.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 18, 2014
    Publication date: June 23, 2016
    Inventors: Patrick Brendan Maginnis, Michael John McKenzie Toksvig, Erick Tseng
  • Publication number: 20160162932
    Abstract: A social networking system receives information describing locations associated with a plurality of its users. Based on information identifying each user and a location associated with each user, the social networking system generates and stores hash values. For example, the social networking system maintains various geo-tiles that each identify geographic areas and generates a hash value based on a user identifier and an identifier of a geo-tile including the location associated with the user. Based on the hash values and locations associated with one or more users, the online system determines a number of unique users associated with locations included in a geographic region. When determining the number of unique users, the online system accounts for a rate at which the online system updates location information associated with various users.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 8, 2014
    Publication date: June 9, 2016
    Inventors: Charles Joseph Hughes, Xiao Zhang, Patrick Brendan Maginnis