Patents by Inventor Sharon Huffner

Sharon Huffner 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: 12347212
    Abstract: Disclosed is an effective domain name defense solution in which a domain name string may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a visual domain analyzer. The domain name string may be rendered or otherwise converted to an image. An optical character recognition function may be applied to the image to read out a text string which can then be compared with a protected domain name to determine whether the text string generated by the optical character recognition function from the image converted from the domain name string is similar to or matches the protected domain name. This visual domain analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process to hundreds of millions of domain names.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 12, 2023
    Date of Patent: July 1, 2025
    Assignee: PROOFPOINT, INC.
    Inventors: Gaurav Mitesh Dalal, Ali Mesdaq, Sharon Huffner, Harold Nguyen
  • Patent number: 12231390
    Abstract: Disclosed is a domain engineering analysis solution that determines relevance of a domain name to a brand name in which a domain name, brand name, and identification of a substring of the domain name may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a domain engineering analyzer. A list of features may be determined. The list of features may include a lexicon, or a set of key-value pairs that encode information about terms included as substrings in the domain name. Determining the features may include obtaining a language model for each term, analyzing a cluster of language models closest to the obtained language model, and determining and scoring a relevance of each term to the brand name. The determined relevance and score of each term may be provided to a client. This relevance analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2023
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2025
    Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.
    Inventors: Sharon Huffner, Ali Mesdaq
  • Patent number: 12045561
    Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for using natural language processing to generate sound-alikes and look-alikes for potentially relevant terms that could be mis-transcribed in a transcript. The disclosed framework combines the advantages of several measures aimed at tackling a wide range of transcription errors including but not limited to word boundary errors, phonetic confusion of words, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, character drops, etc. In some examples, morphological similarity and phonetic similarity are used to address the word boundary errors and phonetic confusion of words. In some examples, a spell checker, word formation, and look-alike sound-alike generator are used to address errors such as phonetic confusion, spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. The generated sound-alikes can be ranked, which enables a flexible application of the generated phrases.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 28, 2022
    Date of Patent: July 23, 2024
    Assignee: THETA LAKE, INC.
    Inventors: Andrea Varga, Sharon Huffner
  • Publication number: 20240176947
    Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for using natural language processing to generate sound-alikes and look-alikes for potentially relevant terms that could be mis-transcribed in a transcript. The disclosed framework combines the advantages of several measures aimed at tackling a wide range of transcription errors including but not limited to word boundary errors, phonetic confusion of words, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, character drops, etc. In some examples, morphological similarity and phonetic similarity are used to address the word boundary errors and phonetic confusion of words. In some examples, a spell checker, word formation, and look-alike sound-alike generator are used to address errors such as phonetic confusion, spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. The generated sound-alikes can be ranked, which enables a flexible application of the generated phrases.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 28, 2022
    Publication date: May 30, 2024
    Inventors: Andrea Varga, Sharon Huffner
  • Publication number: 20240039886
    Abstract: Disclosed is a domain engineering analysis solution that determines relevance of a domain name to a brand name in which a domain name, brand name, and identification of a substring of the domain name may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a domain engineering analyzer. A list of features may be determined. The list of features may include a lexicon, or a set of key-value pairs that encode information about terms included as substrings in the domain name. Determining the features may include obtaining a language model for each term, analyzing a cluster of language models closest to the obtained language model, and determining and scoring a relevance of each term to the brand name. The determined relevance and score of each term may be provided to a client. This relevance analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 29, 2023
    Publication date: February 1, 2024
    Inventors: Sharon Huffner, Ali Mesdaq
  • Patent number: 11799823
    Abstract: Disclosed is a domain engineering analysis solution that determines relevance of a domain name to a brand name in which a domain name, brand name, and identification of a substring of the domain name may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a domain engineering analyzer. A list of features may be determined. The list of features may include a lexicon, or a set of key-value pairs that encode information about terms included as substrings in the domain name. Determining the features may include obtaining a language model for each term, analyzing a cluster of language models closest to the obtained language model, and determining and scoring a relevance of each term to the brand name. The determined relevance and score of each term may be provided to a client. This relevance analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 13, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 24, 2023
    Assignee: PROOFPOINT, INC.
    Inventors: Sharon Huffner, Ali Mesdaq
  • Publication number: 20230169783
    Abstract: Disclosed is an effective domain name defense solution in which a domain name string may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a visual domain analyzer. The domain name string may be rendered or otherwise converted to an image. An optical character recognition function may be applied to the image to read out a text string which can then be compared with a protected domain name to determine whether the text string generated by the optical character recognition function from the image converted from the domain name string is similar to or matches the protected domain name. This visual domain analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process to hundreds of millions of domain names.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 12, 2023
    Publication date: June 1, 2023
    Inventors: Gaurav Mitesh Dalal, Ali Mesdaq, Sharon Huffner, Harold Nguyen
  • Patent number: 11580760
    Abstract: Disclosed is an effective domain name defense solution in which a domain name string may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a visual domain analyzer. The domain name string may be rendered or otherwise converted to an image. An optical character recognition function may be applied to the image to read out a text string which can then be compared with a protected domain name to determine whether the text string generated by the optical character recognition function from the image converted from the domain name string is similar to or matches the protected domain name. This visual domain analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process to hundreds of millions of domain names.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 4, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2023
    Assignee: PROOFPOINT, INC.
    Inventors: Gaurav Mitesh Dalal, Ali Mesdaq, Sharon Huffner, Harold Nguyen
  • Publication number: 20220215046
    Abstract: Systems and methods for enhanced rule-based querying of unstructured text using graph analysis are provided. Some embodiments apply machine learning to the analysis of unstructured text to identify regulatory, privacy, and cybersecurity risks. In some embodiments, a query string is provided to identify desired content in the unstructured text. The query string is tokenized and the tokenized parts are converted into nodes of a query graph and relationships are defining between the nodes. After identifying matches between terms in target text with nodes of the query graph, a graph is generated using matched terms as nodes. Based on the defined relationships, a determination is made whether any group of nodes on the graph satisfy the query string. Any matched nodes are mapped to the target text, and this information is provided to an analyst or reviewer for further consideration or action.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 7, 2022
    Publication date: July 7, 2022
    Inventors: Sharon Huffner, Rohit Jain, Devin H. Redmond, Richard B. Sutton
  • Publication number: 20220038421
    Abstract: Disclosed is a domain engineering analysis solution that determines relevance of a domain name to a brand name in which a domain name, brand name, and identification of a substring of the domain name may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a domain engineering analyzer. A list of features may be determined. The list of features may include a lexicon, or a set of key-value pairs that encode information about terms included as substrings in the domain name. Determining the features may include obtaining a language model for each term, analyzing a cluster of language models closest to the obtained language model, and determining and scoring a relevance of each term to the brand name. The determined relevance and score of each term may be provided to a client. This relevance analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 13, 2021
    Publication date: February 3, 2022
    Inventors: Sharon Huffner, Ali Mesdaq
  • Patent number: 11171916
    Abstract: Disclosed is a domain engineering analysis solution that determines relevance of a domain name to a brand name in which a domain name, brand name, and identification of a substring of the domain name may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a domain engineering analyzer. A list of features may be determined. The list of features may include a lexicon, or a set of key-value pairs that encode information about terms included as substrings in the domain name. Determining the features may include obtaining a language model for each term, analyzing a cluster of language models closest to the obtained language model, and determining and scoring a relevance of each term to the brand name. The determined relevance and score of each term may be provided to a client. This relevance analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 4, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 9, 2021
    Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.
    Inventors: Sharon Huffner, Ali Mesdaq
  • Publication number: 20200265261
    Abstract: Disclosed is an effective domain name defense solution in which a domain name string may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a visual domain analyzer. The domain name string may be rendered or otherwise converted to an image. An optical character recognition function may be applied to the image to read out a text string which can then be compared with a protected domain name to determine whether the text string generated by the optical character recognition function from the image converted from the domain name string is similar to or matches the protected domain name. This visual domain analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process to hundreds of millions of domain names.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 4, 2020
    Publication date: August 20, 2020
    Inventors: Gaurav Mitesh Dalal, Ali Mesdaq, Sharon Huffner, Harold Nguyen
  • Publication number: 20200267119
    Abstract: Disclosed is a domain engineering analysis solution that determines relevance of a domain name to a brand name in which a domain name, brand name, and identification of a substring of the domain name may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a domain engineering analyzer. A list of features may be determined. The list of features may include a lexicon, or a set of key-value pairs that encode information about terms included as substrings in the domain name. Determining the features may include obtaining a language model for each term, analyzing a cluster of language models closest to the obtained language model, and determining and scoring a relevance of each term to the brand name. The determined relevance and score of each term may be provided to a client. This relevance analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 4, 2020
    Publication date: August 20, 2020
    Inventors: Sharon Huffner, Ali Mesdaq
  • Patent number: 10679088
    Abstract: Disclosed is an effective domain name defense solution in which a domain name string may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a visual domain analyzer. The domain name string may be rendered or otherwise converted to an image. An optical character recognition function may be applied to the image to read out a text string which can then be compared with a protected domain name to determine whether the text string generated by the optical character recognition function from the image converted from the domain name string is similar to or matches the protected domain name. This visual domain analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process to hundreds of millions of domain names.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 10, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2020
    Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.
    Inventors: Gaurav Mitesh Dalal, Ali Mesdaq, Sharon Huffner, Harold Nguyen
  • Patent number: 10673814
    Abstract: Disclosed is a domain engineering analysis solution that determines relevance of a domain name to a brand name in which a domain name, brand name, and identification of a substring of the domain name may be provided to or obtained by a computer embodying a domain engineering analyzer. A list of features may be determined. The list of features may include a lexicon, or a set of key-value pairs that encode information about terms included as substrings in the domain name. Determining the features may include obtaining a language model for each term, analyzing a cluster of language models closest to the obtained language model, and determining and scoring a relevance of each term to the brand name. The determined relevance and score of each term may be provided to a client. This relevance analysis can be dynamically applied in an online process or proactively applied in an offline process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 28, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 2, 2020
    Assignee: Proofpoint, Inc.
    Inventors: Sharon Huffner, Ali Mesdaq