Patents by Inventor Peter D. Niblett

Peter D. Niblett 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: 20090150969
    Abstract: A policy filter enables selection of a subset policy alternative that meets certain criteria from amongst a set of policy alternatives without having to specify the entire contents of the alternative to be selected. More specifically, the policy filter simplifies the process of selecting an appropriate alternative from amongst a set of available policy alternatives when the selection criteria comprises only a subset of the behaviors implied by an alternative by reducing the set of available alternatives to those that satisfy a certain criteria.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 5, 2007
    Publication date: June 11, 2009
    Inventors: Douglas B. Davis, Christopher B. Ferris, Peter D. Niblett
  • Patent number: 4736309
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for automatically changing the display in overlapping rectangular viewport areas of a display screen of a digital display apparatus and in which each viewport area is assigned a different priority level. The method includes the steps of (a) storing in a random access store indications of the position and size of each viewport area, together with an indication of the priority level of the viewport area and (b) constructing a first matrix of (2n+1).sup.2 elements, where n is equal to the number of viewport areas, by assigning a vertical component to each vertical coordinate of each viewport area and a horizontal component to each horizontal coordinate of each viewport area, and for each element so formed storing an indication of the highest priority level of the viewports falling within the boundary formed by the coordinates defining the element.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 26, 1985
    Date of Patent: April 5, 1988
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Peter W. Johnson, Peter D. Niblett