Patents by Inventor Peter D. Cohen

Peter D. Cohen 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: 9911100
    Abstract: Techniques are described for facilitating performance of tasks supplied by task requesters, such as by a task exchange server interacting with mobile task performer users available to perform tasks at various geographical locations. Some or all of the tasks may each be associated with geographical locations and/or other device-related criteria related to the performance of the task, and one or more mobile task performer users may be identified as being appropriate to perform the task based on the location of, qualifications of, and/or characteristics of mobile device(s) of the user. Such identified task performer users may then be notified of such appropriate tasks in various ways, such as by sending one or more electronic messages with information about the tasks to one or more mobile devices of the users, and may in some situations use one or more of their mobile devices as part of the task performance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 13, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 6, 2018
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Peter D. Cohen, Glenn A. Dierkes, Adam D. Bradley
  • Patent number: 9805315
    Abstract: Techniques are described for facilitating interactions between task requesters who have tasks that are available to be performed and task performers who are available to perform tasks, such as by an intermediary electronic marketplace or other task fulfillment facilitator system. In some situations, support is provided in various ways for using multiple human languages when supplying and performing tasks. For example, some tasks may have associated languages, and some tasks may further have multiple task variants that each have a distinct associated language. A user may then request information about tasks in a particular language, and receive information about tasks and/or task variants associated with that language. Furthermore, some tasks and task variants may further be associated with locales that include particular languages and/or various other factors, including geographical areas, and such locales may similarly be used to identify appropriate corresponding users that match the various locale factors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 10, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2017
    Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventors: Peter D. Cohen, Luis Felipe Cabrera, Christopher E. Smoak
  • Patent number: 9697486
    Abstract: Techniques are described for facilitating performance of tasks by human users. A task exchange server system acts an intermediary to facilitate performance by human task performer users of tasks provided by other task requesters, such as by providing information about tasks via an electronically accessible site. The task exchange server may further cause information about tasks to be provided to at least some users as they interact with third-party sites not provided by the task exchange server, such as third-party sites operated by entities unrelated to the task exchange server's operator. The third-party sites may include information about tasks along with other information that the third-party sites provide to users, or instead a separate client-side program executing on computing devices of certain users may obtain and present information about tasks to the users, such as in conjunction with information provided by unaffiliated third-party sites.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2006
    Date of Patent: July 4, 2017
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Peter D. Cohen, Christopher E. Smoak
  • Patent number: 9268584
    Abstract: Embodiments of systems and methods are described for dynamically managing requests for computing capacity from a provider of computing resources. Illustratively, the computing resources may include program execution capabilities, data storage or management capabilities, network bandwidth, etc. The systems or methods automatically allocate computing resources for execution of one or more programs associated with the user. The systems and methods may enable the user to make changes to the allocated resources after execution of the one or more programs has started.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 23, 2016
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Lee A. Atchison, Brian A. White, Peter D. Cohen, Peter N. De Santis, Mikhail Garber
  • Patent number: 9026483
    Abstract: Techniques are described for automatically facilitating the performance of tasks based on automatically generating predictions about future task performance, and then using the generated task performance prediction information in various ways. For example, as tasks are performed via a task exchange server system, various information about the tasks and their performance may be tracked, and the tracked information may then be analyzed to identify relationships between various of the information related to the tasks and to corresponding information about the performance of the tasks. Based on the identified relationship information, the task exchange server may automatically generate predictions regarding how performance of additional tasks will occur in the future, such as by determining task performance information that corresponds to information available about the additional tasks.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 19, 2007
    Date of Patent: May 5, 2015
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Peter D. Cohen
  • Publication number: 20140156835
    Abstract: Embodiments of systems and methods are described for dynamically managing requests for computing capacity from a provider of computing resources. Illustratively, the computing resources may include program execution capabilities, data storage or management capabilities, network bandwidth, etc. The systems or methods automatically allocate computing resources for execution of one or more programs associated with the user. The systems and methods may enable the user to make changes to the allocated resources after execution of the one or more programs has started.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 3, 2014
    Publication date: June 5, 2014
    Applicant: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Lee A. Atchison, Brian A. White, Peter D. Cohen, Peter N. De Santis, Mikhail Garber
  • Patent number: 8694350
    Abstract: Techniques are described for facilitating interactions between task requesters who have tasks that are available to be performed and task performers who are available to perform tasks, such as via an electronic marketplace acting as an intermediary for task performance. In some situations, the facilitating of the interactions includes automatically matching available tasks to task performer users, such as to automatically generate recommendations for task performer users of available tasks that are appropriate for those task performer users to perform. Such generated task recommendations for task performer users may then be provided to those task performer users in various ways, including via one or more Web pages or electronic communications sent to devices of the task performer users. The task recommendations may be generated in various ways, including based on previous tasks performed by the task performer users and on other prior activities of the task performer users.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 30, 2010
    Date of Patent: April 8, 2014
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Peter D. Cohen, Ruben E. Ortega, Luis Felipe Cabrera
  • Patent number: 8661120
    Abstract: Embodiments of systems and methods are described for dynamically managing requests for computing capacity from a provider of computing resources. Illustratively, the computing resources may include program execution capabilities, data storage or management capabilities, network bandwidth, etc. The systems or methods automatically allocate computing resources for execution of one or more programs associated with the user. The systems and methods may enable the user to make changes to the allocated resources after execution of the one or more programs has started.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 25, 2014
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Lee A. Atchison, Brian A. White, Peter D. Cohen, Peter N. De Santis, Mikhail Garber
  • Patent number: 8498892
    Abstract: Techniques are described for facilitating automated validation of results of performance of tasks. In some situations, task requesters may specify various automated validation criteria for tasks that they submit, and those specified validation criteria may automatically be used to determine whether results of performance of those tasks by task performers are validated. To facilitate such automated validation, predefined types of validation criteria may be provided that a user may select and/or configure. The outcome of automated validation of results may be used in various ways, such as to indicate when results have been validated and/or have not been validated, to determine whether to provide results to a task requester (e.g., if results are not provided unless they have been validated, or if results that fail validation are corrected or replaced with results that pass validation) and/or to compensate task performers for providing the results.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 26, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 30, 2013
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Peter D. Cohen, Isaac E. Nichols, John B. Bravenec
  • Publication number: 20130081036
    Abstract: A method, system, and computer-readable medium is described for facilitating interactions between task requesters who have tasks that are available to be performed and task performers who are available to perform tasks. In some situations, the tasks to be performed are human performance tasks that use cognitive and other mental skills of human task performers, such as to employ judgment, perception and/or reasoning skills of the human task performers. In addition, in some situations the available tasks are submitted by human task requesters via application programs that programmatically invoke one or more application program interfaces of an electronic marketplace in order to request that the tasks be performed and to receive corresponding results of task performance in a programmatic manner, so that an ensemble of unrelated human agents can interact with the electronic marketplace to collectively perform a wide variety and large number of tasks.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 14, 2012
    Publication date: March 28, 2013
    Applicant: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventors: Peter D. Cohen, Daniel A. Sanderson, Mikhail Seregine, Brett Kiefer, Jang Han Goo, Jeffrey P. Bezos
  • Patent number: 8392235
    Abstract: Techniques are described for facilitating interactions between task requesters who have tasks that are available to be performed and task performers who are available to perform tasks, such as for use by an electronic marketplace for the tasks. In some situations, the electronic marketplace automatically determines prices to be paid for performance of tasks, such as in accordance with pricing-related criteria specified by task requesters who submit groups of numerous related tasks to be performed. Such pricing-related criteria may include various types of information about a desired pace of task performance for tasks of a group, and if so the electronic marketplace performs the automated price determination in such a manner as to accommodate the desired pace, such as by dynamically modifying prices when monitoring of an ongoing actual pace of performance of tasks differs sufficiently from a desired pace of performance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 20, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 5, 2013
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Peter D. Cohen, Christopher E. Smoak
  • Patent number: 8386302
    Abstract: Techniques are described for facilitating interactions between task requesters who have tasks available to be performed and task performer users who are available to perform tasks, such as interactions that enable improvement of unsatisfactory task performance results from human task performer users. In some situations, after a task performer user has generated initial results from performance of a task supplied by a task requester, the task requester indicates that the initial results are only partially satisfactory (e.g., only partially satisfy one or more criteria for the task performance results), and may result in only a partial payment rather than a full payment amount associated with fully satisfactory performance of the task. The task requester may also supply information to provide one or more opportunities to the task performer user to supply additional improved supplemental results (e.g., so as to receive the full payment amount).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 26, 2012
    Date of Patent: February 26, 2013
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Peter D. Cohen, Isaac E. Nichols, Brian L. Cameros
  • Patent number: 8306840
    Abstract: A method, system, and computer-readable medium is described for facilitating interactions between task requesters who have tasks that are available to be performed and task performers who are available to perform tasks. In some situations, the tasks to be performed are human performance tasks that use cognitive and other mental skills of human task performers, such as to employ judgment, perception and/or reasoning skills of the human task performers. In addition, in some situations the available tasks are submitted by human task requesters via application programs that programmatically invoke one or more application program interfaces of an electronic marketplace in order to request that the tasks be performed and to receive corresponding results of task performance in a programmatic manner, so that an ensemble of unrelated human agents can interact with the electronic marketplace to collectively perform a wide variety and large number of tasks.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 27, 2009
    Date of Patent: November 6, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Peter D. Cohen, Daniel A. Sanderson, Mikhail Seregine, Brett Kiefer, Jang Han Goo, Jeffrey P. Bezos
  • Patent number: 8255258
    Abstract: Techniques are described for facilitating interactions between task requesters who have tasks that are available to be performed and task performers who are available to perform tasks, such as by an intermediary electronic marketplace or other task fulfillment facilitator system. In some situations, task performer users and/or other users may create task subscriptions for use in automatically identifying tasks of interest to the users about which the users desire to receive notification. The users may be notified of the identified tasks in various ways, such as by sending electronic messages of various types to the users that include indications of the tasks identified for those users based on their subscriptions. Tasks of interest may be identified in various ways, such as based on task attributes of interest specified for a subscription that are later matched against tasks that are available at the time of the matching.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2010
    Date of Patent: August 28, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Peter D. Cohen, John B. Bravenec, Adam D. Bradley, Jessica C. Locke
  • Patent number: 8170897
    Abstract: Techniques are described for facilitating automated validation of results of performance of tasks. In some situations, task requesters may specify various automated validation criteria for tasks that they submit, and those specified validation criteria may automatically be used to determine whether results of performance of those tasks by task performers are validated. To facilitate such automated validation, predefined types of validation criteria may be provided that a user may select and/or configure. The outcome of automated validation of results may be used in various ways, such as to indicate when results have been validated and/or have not been validated, to determine whether to provide results to a task requester (e.g., if results are not provided unless they have been validated, or if results that fail validation are corrected or replaced with results that pass validation) and/or to compensate task performers for providing the results.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2006
    Date of Patent: May 1, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Peter D. Cohen, Isaac E. Nichols, John B. Bravenec
  • Publication number: 20120072762
    Abstract: Embodiments of systems and methods are described for dynamically managing requests for computing capacity from a provider of computing resources. Illustratively, the computing resources may include program execution capabilities, data storage or management capabilities, network bandwidth, etc. The systems or methods automatically allocate computing resources for execution of one or more programs associated with the user. The systems and methods may enable the user to make changes to the allocated resources after execution of the one or more programs has started.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 21, 2010
    Publication date: March 22, 2012
    Inventors: Lee A. Atchison, Brian A. White, Peter D. Cohen, Peter N. De Santis, Mikhail Garber
  • Patent number: 8121888
    Abstract: Techniques are described for facilitating interactions between task requesters who have tasks available to be performed and task performer users who are available to perform tasks, such as interactions that enable improvement of unsatisfactory task performance results from human task performer users. In some situations, after a task performer user has generated initial results from performance of a task supplied by a task requester, the task requester indicates that the initial results are only partially satisfactory (e.g., only partially satisfy one or more criteria for the task performance results), and may result in only a partial payment rather than a full payment amount associated with fully satisfactory performance of the task. The task requester may also supply information to provide one or more opportunities to the task performer user to supply additional improved supplemental results (e.g., so as to receive the full payment amount).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2007
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Peter D. Cohen, Isaac E. Nichols, Brian L. Cameros
  • Patent number: 8121879
    Abstract: A method, system, and computer-readable medium is described for generating assessments of relevance of qualifications and of credibility of qualification issuers, such as in an automatic manner and for use by users in an electronic marketplace that facilitates interactions between task requesters who have tasks that are available to be performed and task performers who are available to perform tasks. Such assessments may in some situations be provided to users in various manners and for various purposes, such as to allow task requester users to identify appropriate qualifications to associate with their tasks and/or to allow task performer users to identify appropriate qualifications to acquire to assist in future performance of tasks. The assessments may be generated in various manners, including based on analyzing usage data related to the use of qualifications by task performers and task requesters and based on feedback provided by human users.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 19, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2012
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Peter D. Cohen
  • Patent number: 8046250
    Abstract: Techniques are described for facilitating interactions between task requesters who have tasks that are available to be performed and task performers who are available to perform tasks, such as by an intermediary electronic marketplace or other task fulfillment facilitator system. In some situations, support is provided in various ways for using multiple human languages when supplying and performing tasks. For example, some tasks may have associated languages, and some tasks may further have multiple task variants that each have a distinct associated language. A user may then request information about tasks in a particular language, and receive information about tasks and/or task variants associated with that language. Furthermore, some tasks and task variants may further be associated with locales that include particular languages and/or various other factors, including geographical areas, and such locales may similarly be used to identify appropriate corresponding users that match the various locale factors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2006
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2011
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Peter D. Cohen, Luis Felipe Cabrera, Christopher E. Smoak
  • Patent number: 8024211
    Abstract: A method, system, and computer-readable medium is described for generating assessments of relevance of qualifications and of credibility of qualification issuers, such as in an automatic manner and for use by users in an electronic marketplace that facilitates interactions between task requesters who have tasks that are available to be performed and task performers who are available to perform tasks. Such assessments may in some situations be provided to users in various manners and for various purposes, such as to allow task requester users to identify appropriate qualifications to associate with their tasks and/or to allow task performer users to identify appropriate qualifications to acquire to assist in future performance of tasks. The assessments may be generated in various manners, including based on analyzing usage data related to the use of qualifications by task performers and task requesters and based on feedback provided by human users.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2006
    Date of Patent: September 20, 2011
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Peter D. Cohen