Patents by Inventor Scott Dennis

Scott Dennis 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: 7167969
    Abstract: An apparatus and method provides the capability of mirroring storage from a primary system to a mirrored system in a way that uses parallelism in the mirrored system to maximize the efficiency of writing data to the mirrored storage for operations that do not conflict while serializing operations that do conflict. The mirroring of the present invention is “logical mirroring”, which does not require identical disk drives, and which supports mirroring between geographically remote locations to protect against catastrophic site failure. Parallelism is achieved in the mirrored system by dividing the virtual address space into multiple ranges, and by assigning a group of tasks to each range. When an operation is received on the mirrored system, the virtual address range that the operation affects is determined, and the operation is then delegated to the task group that corresponds to the affected virtual address range. By dividing the virtual address space into ranges, tasks in different ranges (i.e.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 25, 2003
    Date of Patent: January 23, 2007
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Kevin Curtis Griffin, Scott Dennis Helt, Glen Warren Nelson, Mark Philip Piazza, Gary Ross Ricard
  • Patent number: 6904943
    Abstract: A vent system associated with a vapor outlet is coupled to a container (e.g., a fuel tank). The vent system can be used for onboard refueling vapor recovery (ORVR) for vehicles. The vent system includes a first elongated member (e.g., a vent tube), a rotating device, and a second elongated member (e.g., a breather tube) that is coupled between the rotating device and a buoyant device. The buoyant device interacts with materials (e.g., fuel) input into the fuel tank to actuate rotation of the rotating device. Once a predetermined amount of fuel has been input into the fuel tank, the buoyant device rotates the rotating device a predetermined amount, which stops venting of fuel vapor through the vent system. The fuel level continues to increase up the filler pipe until an automatic shut off mechanism of the device controlling fuel input stops fuel flow.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2003
    Date of Patent: June 14, 2005
    Assignee: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Scott Dennis
  • Publication number: 20050028937
    Abstract: An overcoat application apparatus is used to transfer an overcoat material from a donor support to a printed media. The overcoat application apparatus in this case includes a laminate cartridge, a donor supply reel, a donor guide bar, a heated fuser roller, a pressure roller, a peel bar, and a take-up reel. The donor supply reel provides a continuous source of donor plus overcoat material. The donor guide bar guides printed media and the donor plus overcoat into a nip created by forcing the heated fuser roller and pressure roller together. The heated fuser roller is used to transport the printed media and donor through the nip and apply heat to the donor and printed media. The pressure roller is used to apply pressure to the fuser roller in order to produce the mechanical nip. The nip plus the heat causes the overcoat material on the donor to be transferred to the printed media.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 9, 2004
    Publication date: February 10, 2005
    Inventors: Kerry McKay, Robert Rosati, Scott Dennis
  • Publication number: 20040187956
    Abstract: A vent system associated with a vapor outlet is coupled to a container (e.g., a fuel tank). The vent system can be used for onboard refueling vapor recovery (ORVR) for vehicles. The vent system includes a first elongated member (e.g., a vent tube), a rotating device, and a second elongated member (e.g., a breather tube) that is coupled between the rotating device and a buoyant device. The buoyant device interacts with materials (e.g., fuel) input into the fuel tank to actuate rotation of the rotating device. Once a predetermined amount of fuel has been input into the fuel tank, the buoyant device rotates the rotating device a predetermined amount, which stops venting of fuel vapor through the vent system. The fuel level continues to increase up the filler pipe until an automatic shut off mechanism of the device controlling fuel input stops fuel flow.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 31, 2003
    Publication date: September 30, 2004
    Applicant: Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Scott Dennis
  • Patent number: 6421664
    Abstract: An apparatus, program product and method for estimating the number of keys within an index key range over an index using page pointers to pages in the index comprises a program configured for scanning the index, from a divergence point of the key range, until a page pointer is found and incrementing a counter for each found page pointer. The program is further configured for determining if the page pointer points to a leaf page in the index, and if it does, continuing the scan to find the next page pointer without going to the corresponding leaf page. Otherwise, the program continues the scan to find the next page pointer and continues the scan for page pointers and increments the counter until the index is scanned for the entire key range. Upon completion of the scan, the program determines an estimate of the number of keys utilizing the counter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 16, 1999
    Date of Patent: July 16, 2002
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Micahel John Groeschel, Scott Dennis Helt, Rebecca Nan Brady Legler
  • Patent number: 6403084
    Abstract: Methods and compositions for treatment of animal feed or silage by treatment with a mixed culture of heterofermentive lactic acid bacteria and homofermentive lactic acid bacteria of the proper ratio. Bacterial strains for such treatment are also provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 3, 2000
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2002
    Assignee: Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.
    Inventors: Russell Kuo-fu Chan, Scott Dennis, Elizabeth K. Harman, William Rutherford, Brenda Smiley
  • Patent number: 5826262
    Abstract: A method for partitioning keys onto radix tree logical pages and a parallel index page build algorithm in order to provide radix tree build speedup proportional to the number of processors on the system and controlled efficient page utilization. Also, since keys are intelligently partitioned so that a complete set of keys is inserted into a logical page, there is no page overflow during the tree construction and thus page splitting is eliminated. Since radix index trees are really groups of logical pages in which each logical page contains a small tree, the tree is built (with respect to the logical pages) from the bottom up, while within each individual logical page the tree is constructed from the top down. The space required for a logical page is pre-allocated to allow construction of limbs to begin without waiting for the build of their underlying pages to complete.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 22, 1996
    Date of Patent: October 20, 1998
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Thuan Quang Bui, Scott Dennis Helt, Balakrishna Raghavendra Iyer, Gary Ross Ricard