Patents by Inventor Thomas Laird-McConnell

Thomas Laird-McConnell 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: 8762868
    Abstract: The invention discloses a system and method for integrating user interfaces (UI) within an application. The invention can be configured to display an UI of a second application within a first application in a manner that the user cannot identify that the second application's UI is displayed on top of a reference window within the first application. The invention can be configured to identify a reference window that is to be replaced by a replacement window of the second application, monitor the reference window, create the replacement window, and align the replacement window over top of the reference window.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 2011
    Date of Patent: June 24, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventor: Thomas Laird-McConnell
  • Publication number: 20130066693
    Abstract: In a crowd-sourced question answering system, the user is allowed to provide clarifying information to eliminate some of the most probable solutions or answers. This allows the user to find less common solutions to a query.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 14, 2011
    Publication date: March 14, 2013
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Thomas Laird-McConnell, Steven W. Ickman, Christopher C. McConnell
  • Patent number: 7921375
    Abstract: The invention discloses a system and method for integrating user interfaces (UI) within an application. The invention can be configured to display an UI of a second application within a first application in a manner that the user cannot identify that the second application's UI is displayed on top of a reference window within the first application. The invention can be configured to identify a reference window that is to be replaced by a replacement window of the second application, monitor the reference window, create the replacement window, and align the replacement window over top of the reference window.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 16, 2005
    Date of Patent: April 5, 2011
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventor: Thomas Laird-McConnell
  • Publication number: 20070143333
    Abstract: The invention discloses a system and method for creating search folders within a first application that are for a second application. The search folders can be stored within the first application and contain any number of search queries that can be executed by the second application. When a search query is subsequently accessed from the search folder, the second application can provide search results in its own user interface within the first application by aligning the user interface on top of a window within the first application.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 16, 2005
    Publication date: June 21, 2007
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventor: Thomas Laird-McConnell
  • Publication number: 20070143704
    Abstract: The invention discloses a system and method for integrating user interfaces (UI) within an application. The invention can be configured to display an UI of a second application within a first application in a manner that the user cannot identify that the second application's UI is displayed on top of a reference window within the first application. The invention can be configured to identify a reference window that is to be replaced by a replacement window of the second application, monitor the reference window, create the replacement window, and align the replacement window over top of the reference window.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 16, 2005
    Publication date: June 21, 2007
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventor: Thomas Laird-McConnell
  • Publication number: 20070079371
    Abstract: The invention introduces a system and method for reducing security threats from untrusted code. The invention can be configured to generate counterfeit component files for every component that is not approved for a particular application. If the untrusted code requests to have the application load a component that the application is not approved to load, the application can load the counterfeit component file that corresponds to the requested component.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 30, 2005
    Publication date: April 5, 2007
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventor: Thomas Laird-McConnell
  • Publication number: 20060195435
    Abstract: A system and method provide real time query assistance from a search engine to a user formulating a query. The system may include stored corpus information that provides a detailed description of a corpus, a user input detection component for incrementally detecting user input and a corpus search component for searching the corpus upon detection of each increment in order to provide query completion options. The system may further include a user interaction component for providing the user with selectable options after each detection cycle.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 28, 2005
    Publication date: August 31, 2006
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Thomas Laird-McConnell, Steven Ickman
  • Publication number: 20060129379
    Abstract: A system for synchronizing a natural language input element and a graphical user interface has a synchronization engine. The synchronization engine is adapted to monitor user interactions with the natural language input element and the graphical user interface and to synchronize the natural language input element and the graphical user interface responsive to the user interactions.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 14, 2004
    Publication date: June 15, 2006
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: William Ramsey, Christopher McConnell, David Dawson, Jonas Barklund, Steven Ickman, Thomas Laird-McConnell