Patents by Inventor Robert Patrick Fitzgerald

Robert Patrick Fitzgerald 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: 11933558
    Abstract: The techniques described herein relate to methods and apparatus for firearm safety mechanisms, visual safety indicators, and related techniques. A firearm includes a handle comprising one or more buttons disposed at least partially within a surface of the handle, such that the one or more buttons can be in contact with an operator's hand when the operator grasps the handle; a safety mechanism in mechanical communication with the trigger. The safety mechanism comprises: a first position that blocks actuation of the trigger; and a second position that does not block actuation of the trigger; and at least one processor configured to: upon determining an input code matches a stored code, transmits a signal to the safety mechanism to change the safety mechanism from the first position to the second position so that the firearm can be fired by the operator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2022
    Date of Patent: March 19, 2024
    Assignee: LodeStar Firearms, Inc.
    Inventors: Virginia Chandler, Robert Eugeniusz Regent, Katie Louise Schuelke, Michael James Witt, John Patrick Fitzgerald
  • Patent number: 11920880
    Abstract: The techniques described herein relate to methods and apparatus for firearm safety mechanisms, visual safety indicators, and related techniques. A firearm includes a handle comprising one or more buttons disposed at least partially within a surface of the handle, such that the one or more buttons can be in contact with an operator's hand when the operator grasps the handle; a safety mechanism in mechanical communication with the trigger. The safety mechanism comprises: a first position that blocks actuation of the trigger; and a second position that does not block actuation of the trigger; and at least one processor configured to: upon determining an input code matches a stored code, transmits a signal to the safety mechanism to change the safety mechanism from the first position to the second position so that the firearm can be fired by the operator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2022
    Date of Patent: March 5, 2024
    Assignee: LodeStar Firearms, Inc.
    Inventors: Virginia Chandler, Robert Eugeniusz Regent, Katie Louise Schuelke, Michael James Witt, John Patrick Fitzgerald
  • Patent number: 10915403
    Abstract: A versioned records management computing system that uses a restart era in order to promote rapid recovery. A persistent store includes a multi-versioned record collection. The records are also associated with a restart era that corresponds to the era of operation of the computing system after a restart. Upon a recovery, the current restart era changes. An object collection media has an object collection that conforms to an object model such that the object model is used to operate upon the records. The object collection media is operable such that the object collection is durable so as to survive restarts of the system to thereby allow for accelerated recovery.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 18, 2019
    Date of Patent: February 9, 2021
    Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
    Inventors: Per-Ake Larson, Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Cristian Diaconu
  • Patent number: 10761936
    Abstract: A versioned records management system that uses a restart era in order to promote rapid recovery. A persistent store includes a plurality of items that are each marked with a restart era. Any item that was created in the current restart era is marked with the current restart era. The persistent store also includes a first subset of the items comprising a plurality of records. At least one record includes multiple corresponding versions. The persistent store also includes a second subset of the items comprising a collection of objects that conform to an object model that is used to operate upon the plurality of records via the object collection. The versioned records management system recovers from a crash by promoting an item in the persistent store to the current restart era, in parallel with normal operation of the versioned records management system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 9, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2020
    Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
    Inventors: Per-Ake Larson, Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Cristian Diaconu
  • Patent number: 10726047
    Abstract: A log manager causing events to be written to the primary and the secondary computing systems for high availability, and returning threads quickly. Rather than cause every event write to be immediately written to the secondary computing system, the log management component is triggered to write to the secondary computing system upon detecting event write requests of event writes of a particular event type. In response to detecting such an event write, the log management component gathers a group of event writes corresponding to that particular event write, and dispatches the event writes as a group. The particular thread that initiated the particular event write of the particular event type is returned after dispatching the event write group, but before or without confirmation of the particular event write group has been written to the secondary computing system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2018
    Date of Patent: July 28, 2020
    Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
    Inventors: Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Per-Ake Larson, Michael James Zwilling, Cristian Diaconu
  • Patent number: 10664362
    Abstract: The recovery of one or more transactions in a computing system in which one or more persistent systems are coupled via a bus to one or more processors. As an example, the persistent system may serve as at least part of the main memory of the computing system. The transaction might implement multi-versioning in which a record is not updated in place. Rather, each record is represented as a sequence of one or more record versions, each version having a valid interval during which the record version is considered to properly represent the record.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 9, 2016
    Date of Patent: May 26, 2020
    Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
    Inventors: Per-Ake Larson, Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Cristian Diaconu, Michael James Zwilling
  • Patent number: 10387274
    Abstract: A system that uses a persistent main memory to preserve events that await logging in a persistent store. Each event is written into the persistent main memory so as to be loggable in case of recovery. For instance, the event may be written into a log cache structure, along with other state which identifies that the event is in the particular log cache structure, the location of the event within the particular log cache structure, and the order of the event. To recover, the log in the persistent store is evaluated to identify the end of the stored log. The tail of the log is identified in the persistent main memory by identifying any log cache structures that are after the end of the stored log and which are validly recoverable. The log cache structure contents are then serialized one log cache at a time, earliest first.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 31, 2017
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2019
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Per-Ake Larson, Michael James Zwilling, Cristian Diaconu
  • Publication number: 20190243712
    Abstract: A versioned records management computing system that uses a restart era in order to promote rapid recovery. A persistent store includes a multi-versioned record collection. The records are also associated with a restart era that corresponds to the era of operation of the computing system after a restart. Upon a recovery, the current restart era changes. An object collection media has an object collection that conforms to an object model such that the object model is used to operate upon the records. The object collection media is operable such that the object collection is durable so as to survive restarts of the system to thereby allow for accelerated recovery.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 18, 2019
    Publication date: August 8, 2019
    Inventors: Per-Ake Larson, Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Cristian Diaconu
  • Patent number: 10296418
    Abstract: A versioned records management computing system that uses a restart era in order to promote rapid recovery. A persistent store includes a multi-versioned record collection. The records are also associated with a restart era that corresponds to the era of operation of the computing system after a restart. Upon a recovery, the current restart era changes. An object collection media has an object collection that conforms to an object model such that the object model is used to operate upon the records. The object collection media is operable such that the object collection is durable so as to survive restarts of the system to thereby allow for accelerated recovery.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 19, 2016
    Date of Patent: May 21, 2019
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Per-Ake Larson, Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Cristian Diaconu
  • Patent number: 10261869
    Abstract: Performing a transaction in the context of a computing system that has one or more persistent systems coupled to one or more processors over a bus. As an example, the persistent system may serve as at least part of the main memory of the computing system. The transaction might implement multi-versioning in which a record is not updated in place. Rather, each record is represented as a sequence of one or more record versions, each version having a valid interval during which the record version is considered to properly represent the record. The transaction processing uses torn write detection so that recovery processes may use such guards to verify that there are no torn writes. For instance, torn write guards may be used to verify the integrity of record versions as well as the log buffers that refer to the record versions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 17, 2016
    Date of Patent: April 16, 2019
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Per-Ake Larson, Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Cristian Diaconu, Michael James Zwilling
  • Patent number: 10140150
    Abstract: The efficient use of threads that issue calls to log events. While waiting for the call to return or complete, the threads are put to work on other tasks that are not part of the process that generated the event. This can occur without context switching of the thread, especially when the task to be performed is state-less or context free. In the efficient thread diversion process, the thread calls a logging component to log an event. This blocks the thread from continuing work on a process that the event is part of until the event is logged. The thread then performs a diversion task that is not part of the processing unit that the event is part of. After detecting that the event has logged, the thread continues work on the processing unit that the event is part of.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 8, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 27, 2018
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Cristian Diaconu, Michael James Zwilling, Per-Ake Larson
  • Publication number: 20180246949
    Abstract: A log manager causing events to be written to the primary and the secondary computing systems for high availability, and returning threads quickly. Rather than cause every event write to be immediately written to the secondary computing system, the log management component is triggered to write to the secondary computing system upon detecting event write requests of event writes of a particular event type. In response to detecting such an event write, the log management component gathers a group of event writes corresponding to that particular event write, and dispatches the event writes as a group. The particular thread that initiated the particular event write of the particular event type is returned after dispatching the event write group, but before or without confirmation of the particular event write group has been written to the secondary computing system.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 30, 2018
    Publication date: August 30, 2018
    Inventors: Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Per-Ake Larson, Michael James Zwilling, Cristian Diaconu
  • Publication number: 20180232281
    Abstract: A versioned records management system that uses a restart era in order to promote rapid recovery. A persistent store includes a plurality of items that are each marked with a restart era. Any item that was created in the current restart era is marked with the current restart era. The persistent store also includes a first subset of the items comprising a plurality of records. At least one record includes multiple corresponding versions. The persistent store also includes a second subset of the items comprising a collection of objects that conform to an object model that is used to operate upon the plurality of records via the object collection. The versioned records management system recovers from a crash by promoting an item in the persistent store to the current restart era, in parallel with normal operation of the versioned records management system.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 9, 2018
    Publication date: August 16, 2018
    Inventors: Per-Ake Larson, Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Cristian Diaconu
  • Patent number: 9965538
    Abstract: A log manager causing events to be written to the primary and the secondary computing systems for high availability, and returning threads quickly. Rather than cause every event write to be immediately written to the secondary computing system, the log management component is triggered to write to the secondary computing system upon detecting event write requests of event writes of a particular event type. In response to detecting such an event write, the log management component gathers a group of event writes corresponding to that particular event write, and dispatches the event writes as a group. The particular thread that initiated the particular event write of the particular event type is returned after dispatching the event write group, but before or without confirmation of the particular event write group has been written to the secondary computing system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 19, 2016
    Date of Patent: May 8, 2018
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Per-Ake Larson, Michael James Zwilling, Cristian Diaconu
  • Patent number: 9952931
    Abstract: A versioned records management computing system that uses a restart era in order to promote rapid recovery. A persistent store includes a multi-versioned record collection. The records are also associated with a restart era that corresponds to the era of operation of the computing system after a restart. Upon a recovery, the current restart era changes. An object collection media has an object collection that conforms to an object model such that the object model is used to operate upon the records. The object collection media is operable such that the object collection is durable so as to survive restarts of the system to thereby allow for accelerated recovery.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 19, 2016
    Date of Patent: April 24, 2018
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Per-Ake Larson, Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Cristian Diaconu
  • Publication number: 20170329679
    Abstract: A system that uses a persistent main memory to preserve events that await logging in a persistent store. Each event is written into the persistent main memory so as to be loggable in case of recovery. For instance, the event may be written into a log cache structure, along with other state which identifies that the event is in the particular log cache structure, the location of the event within the particular log cache structure, and the order of the event. To recover, the log in the persistent store is evaluated to identify the end of the stored log. The tail of the log is identified in the persistent main memory by identifying any log cache structures that are after the end of the stored log and which are validly recoverable. The log cache structure contents are then serialized one log cache at a time, earliest first.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 31, 2017
    Publication date: November 16, 2017
    Inventors: Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Per-Ake Larson, Michael James Zwilling, Cristian Diaconu
  • Patent number: 9747174
    Abstract: A system that uses a persistent main memory to preserve events that await logging in a persistent store. Each event is written into the persistent main memory so as to be loggable in case of recovery. For instance, the event may be written into a log cache structure, along with other state which identifies that the event is in the particular log cache structure, the location of the event within the particular log cache structure, and the order of the event. To recover, the log in the persistent store is evaluated to identify the end of the stored log. The tail of the log is identified in the persistent main memory by identifying any log cache structures that are after the end of the stored log and which are validly recoverable. The log cache structure contents are then serialized one log cache at a time, earliest first.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 11, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 29, 2017
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Per-Ake Larson, Michael James Zwilling, Cristian Diaconu
  • Publication number: 20170228254
    Abstract: The efficient use of threads that issue calls to log events. While waiting for the call to return or otherwise be completed, the threads are put to work on other tasks that are not part of the process that generated the event. This can occur without context switching of the thread, especially when the task to be performed is state-less or context free. In the efficient thread diversion process, the thread calls a logging component to log an event. This blocks the thread from continuing work on a process that the event is part of until the event is logged. The thread then performs a diversion task that is not part of the processing unit that the event is part of. This efficiently uses the thread while awaiting the event to be logged. After detecting that the event has logged, the thread continues work on the processing unit that the event is part of.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 8, 2016
    Publication date: August 10, 2017
    Inventors: Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Cristian Diaconu, Michael James Zwilling, Per-Ake Larson
  • Publication number: 20170206263
    Abstract: A log manager causing events to be written to the primary and the secondary computing systems for high availability, and returning threads quickly. Rather than cause every event write to be immediately written to the secondary computing system, the log management component is triggered to write to the secondary computing system upon detecting event write requests of event writes of a particular event type. In response to detecting such an event write, the log management component gathers a group of event writes corresponding to that particular event write, and dispatches the event writes as a group. The particular thread that initiated the particular event write of the particular event type is returned after dispatching the event write group, but before or without confirmation of the particular event write group has been written to the secondary computing system.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 19, 2016
    Publication date: July 20, 2017
    Inventors: Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Per-Ake Larson, Michael James Zwilling, Cristian Diaconu
  • Publication number: 20170206138
    Abstract: A versioned records management computing system that uses a restart era in order to promote rapid recovery. A persistent store includes a multi-versioned record collection. The records are also associated with a restart era that corresponds to the era of operation of the computing system after a restart. Upon a recovery, the current restart era changes. An object collection media has an object collection that conforms to an object model such that the object model is used to operate upon the records. The object collection media is operable such that the object collection is durable so as to survive restarts of the system to thereby allow for accelerated recovery.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 19, 2016
    Publication date: July 20, 2017
    Inventors: Per-Ake Larson, Robert Patrick Fitzgerald, Cristian Diaconu