Patents by Inventor Tsunayuki Owa

Tsunayuki Owa 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).

  • Community service offering apparatus, community service offering method, program storage medium, and community system
    Patent number: 7587338
    Abstract: A community system is disclosed which allows community service offering apparatus to exchange information with a plurality of user terminals connected by a network. The community service offering apparatus includes: a virtual space information storing element for storing in advance information about a plurality of virtual spaces; a virtual space offering element for allowing a user to select any one of the virtual spaces and for offering the selected virtual space as a user-specific virtual space owned by the user regarded as a privileged user; and a charge controlling element for charging the privileged user who owns the user-specific virtual space a fee corresponding to a type of the user-specific virtual space, while not charging fees on those users other than the privileged user who simply gain access to the user-specific virtual space of the privileged user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 25, 2001
    Date of Patent: September 8, 2009
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventor: Tsunayuki Owa
  • Community service offering apparatus, community service offering method, program storage medium, and community system
    Publication number: 20020040327
    Abstract: A community system is disclosed which allows community service offering apparatus to exchange information with a plurality of user terminals connected by a network. The community service offering apparatus includes: a virtual space information storing element for storing in advance information about a plurality of virtual spaces; a virtual space offering element for allowing a user to select any one of the virtual spaces and for offering the selected virtual space as a user-specific virtual space owned by the user regarded as a privileged user; and a charge controlling element for charging the privileged user who owns the user-specific virtual space a fee corresponding to a type of the user-specific virtual space, while not charging fees on those users other than the privileged user who simply gain access to the user-specific virtual space of the privileged user.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 25, 2001
    Publication date: April 4, 2002
    Applicant: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventor: Tsunayuki Owa