Patents by Inventor Timothy Dan Greer

Timothy Dan Greer 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: 6009429
    Abstract: A guided tour of some portion of the World Wide Web (WWW) works as part of an ordinary web page, can be served by any web server, and can be used by web browsers without additional software. The system guides a user through a tour by displaying in sequence actual web pages in the tour along with a corresponding teaching web page. The teaching web page includes educational information about the current web page. The tour includes commentary, allowance for side trips, true visiting of the tour pages, not mere copies, maps, and "static" (user clicks for next page) and "dynamic" (a timer controls how long a tour page is on-screen) tours.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 1997
    Date of Patent: December 28, 1999
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Timothy Dan Greer, William Francis Phillips, Will Joseph Roden, Jr.
  • Patent number: 5987466
    Abstract: A method of browsing the Worldwide Web of the Internet and presenting elements of a web page to a user. The web browser requests a desired HTML and then requests other elements of the page based upon user defined priority levels. Elements are presented to the user in priority sequence as soon as received eliminating unnecessary waiting for lower priority or unrequested elements, as well as partial display of desired elements.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 25, 1997
    Date of Patent: November 16, 1999
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Timothy Dan Greer, William Francis Phillips
  • Patent number: 5973665
    Abstract: Method and apparatus for controlling a display device displaying a plurality of display elements, such as character strings, fields, icons, buttons and so forth. Responsive to user entry of a display indicia, such as a character string entered at a keyboard, or a field or button activated at the screen by a cursor or mouse pointer, determining if at least one display element corresponds to the display indicia; and if so temporarily highlighting that display element.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 7, 1996
    Date of Patent: October 26, 1999
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Brian John Davie, Timothy Dan Greer
  • Patent number: 5642430
    Abstract: A system determines display durations of each of a plurality of images in a presentation based on a respective amount of the information content in the image, the greater the information content the longer the display time. There are various techniques for determining the information content of each of the images. For example, the system determines for each image the number of pixels at each of a multiplicity of respective pixel levels and the total number of pixels at one or more pixel levels for which the respective number(s) of pixels are significantly larger than the numbers of pixels at the other pixel levels. The pixels represented by these one or more pixel levels likely represent background or other mundane information. Consequently, only the pixels at the other values are considered as containing important information and their total number represents the total information content of the image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 1, 1996
    Date of Patent: June 24, 1997
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Timothy Dan Greer, William Francis Phillips