Patents by Inventor William Cooper

William Cooper 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: 7930229
    Abstract: A system and method for managing a financial institution account with a transaction card used as a deferred-debit transaction card and as an automated banking card, wherein debit transactions are stored by a managing computer system for a billing cycle without being automatically debited against the account until after debit transaction activity. In certain instances, this is not until after the activity for the billing cycle is reported to the holder of the account. Also, a limited time period is provided relative to the billing cycle, for the user to provide funds as consideration for payment against the transaction card purchases without an automatic debiting of available funds as full consideration for payment against the deferred-debit purchases. Before the limited time period lapses, the available amount useful for additional purchases can be increased.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 6, 2009
    Date of Patent: April 19, 2011
    Assignee: TCF Financial Corporation
    Inventor: William A. Cooper
  • Patent number: 7912774
    Abstract: A deferred-type payment approach facilitates transaction card management and processing. According to an example embodiment, a user's transaction card purchases are authorized against a purchase limit associated with a consideration-bearing (e.g., interest-bearing) account. The purchases are tracked and, at the end of a billing cycle, provided to the user via a statement or other informative approach. During a payment time period after the end of the billing cycle, the user is afforded an opportunity to review tracked purchases and provide funds to cover the purchases. If the user does not provide funds for the purchases during the payment time period, funds are automatically transferred from the consideration-bearing account to cover the purchases at the end of the payment time period. In this regard, purchases made with the transaction card against the consideration-bearing account are not assessed against the consideration-bearing account until after the billing cycle has ended.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 6, 2009
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2011
    Assignee: TCF Financial Corporation
    Inventor: William A. Cooper
  • Patent number: 7899827
    Abstract: Disclosed is a method, a computer program product and a system for processing documents that contain chemical names. The system has a unit to partition document text and to assign semantic meaning to words; a unit to recognize any substructures present in the chemical name fragments; and a unit to determine structural connectivity information of the chemical name fragments and recognized substructures and to store the determined structural connectivity information in a searchable index. The system further includes a unit to search a text index using at least one of a fragment name and a substructure name and to search the structure index by at least one of fragment connectivity and substructure connectivity. At an intersection of the search results from the structure index and the text index, the system operates to identify at least one document that contains a reference to a corresponding chemical compound.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 9, 2004
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Stephen Boyer, Anna Rosa Coden, James William Cooper
  • Patent number: 7676358
    Abstract: This invention provides a method, a system and a computer program for recognizing technical terms. In the preferred embodiment the technical terms are chemical names, and in a most preferred embodiment the technical terms are organic chemical names. A computer program product stores in a computer readable form a set of computer program instructions for directing at least one computer to process a text document. The set of computer program instructions include instructions for assigning corresponding associated parts of speech to words found in the document. The instructions for assigning include instructions to apply a plurality of regular expressions, rules and a plurality of dictionaries to recognize organic chemical name fragments, to combine recognized organic chemical name fragments into a complete organic chemical name, and to assign the complete organic chemical name with one part of speech.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 2003
    Date of Patent: March 9, 2010
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Anna Rosa Coden, James William Cooper
  • Patent number: 7664638
    Abstract: In general, the present invention converts speech, preferably recorded on a portable recorder, to text, analyzes the text, and determines voice commands and times when the voice commands occurred. Task names are associated with voice commands and time segments. These time segments and tasks may be packaged as time increments and stored (e.g., in a file or database) for further processing. Preferably, phrase grammar rules are used when analyzing the text, as this helps to determine voice commands. Using phrase grammar rules also allows the text to contain a variety of topics, only some of which are pertinent to tracking time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 28, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2010
    Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc.
    Inventors: James William Cooper, Donna Karen Byron
  • Publication number: 20100005016
    Abstract: A system and method for managing a financial institution account with a transaction card used as a deferred-debit transaction card and as an automated banking card wherein debit transactions are stored by a managing computer system for a billing cycle without being automatically debited against the account until after debit transaction activity. The card user can earn credit, or interest based on deferred debits. Also, in certain instances, a limited time period is provided relative to the billing cycle, for the user to provide funds as consideration for payment against the transaction card purchases without an automatic debiting of available funds as full consideration for payment against the deferred-debit purchases.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 7, 2009
    Publication date: January 7, 2010
    Inventor: William A. Cooper
  • Publication number: 20100001067
    Abstract: A system and method for managing a financial institution account with a transaction card used as a deferred-debit transaction card and as an automated banking card wherein debit transactions are stored by a managing computer system for a billing cycle without being automatically debited against the account until after debit transaction activity. In certain instances, this is not until after the activity for the billing cycle is reported to the holder of the account. Also, a limited time period is provided relative to the billing cycle, for the user to provide funds as consideration for payment against the transaction card purchases without an automatic debiting of available funds as full consideration for payment against the deferred-debit purchases. Before the limited time period lapsing, the available amount useful for additional purchases can be increased.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 6, 2009
    Publication date: January 7, 2010
    Inventor: William A. Cooper
  • Publication number: 20100001068
    Abstract: A system and method for managing a financial institution account with a transaction card used as a deferred-debit transaction card and as an automated banking card wherein debit transactions are stored by a managing computer system for a billing cycle without being automatically debited against the account until after debit transaction activity. In certain instances, this is not until after the activity for the billing cycle is reported to the holder of the account. Also, a limited time period is provided relative to the billing cycle, for the user to provide funds as consideration for payment against the transaction card purchases without an automatic debiting of available funds as full consideration for payment against the deferred-debit purchases. Before the limited time period lapsing, the available amount useful for additional purchases can be increased.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 7, 2009
    Publication date: January 7, 2010
    Inventor: William A. Cooper
  • Publication number: 20090313108
    Abstract: A deferred-type payment approach facilitates transaction card management and processing. According to an example embodiment, a user's transaction card purchases are authorized against a purchase limit associated with a consideration-bearing (e.g., interest-bearing) account. The purchases are tracked and, at the end of a billing cycle, provided to the user via a statement or other informative approach. During a payment time period after the end of the billing cycle, the user is afforded an opportunity to review tracked purchases and provide funds to cover the purchases. If the user does not provide funds for the purchases during the payment time period, funds are automatically transferred from the consideration-bearing account to cover the purchases at the end of the payment time period. In this regard, purchases made with the transaction card against the consideration-bearing account are not assessed against the consideration-bearing account until after the billing cycle has ended.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 6, 2009
    Publication date: December 17, 2009
    Inventor: William A. Cooper
  • Patent number: 7594606
    Abstract: A deferred-type payment approach facilitates transaction card management and processing. According to an example embodiment, a user's transaction card purchases are authorized against a purchase limit associated with a consideration-bearing (e.g., interest-bearing) account. The purchases are tracked and, at the end of a billing cycle, provided to the user via a statement or other informative approach. During a payment time period after the end of the billing cycle, the user is afforded an opportunity to review tracked purchases and provide funds to cover the purchases. If the user does not provide funds for the purchases during the payment time period, funds are automatically transferred from the consideration-bearing account to cover the purchases at the end of the payment time period. In this regard, purchases made with the transaction card against the consideration-bearing account are not assessed against the consideration-bearing account until after the billing cycle has ended.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 17, 2008
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2009
    Assignee: TCF Financial Corporation
    Inventor: William A. Cooper
  • Patent number: 7552623
    Abstract: A leak detection dye carrier is formed using a two-stage process (53). In a first stage, the dye carrier (52) is saturated with a mixture (54) of a dye powder and an evaporable solvent, such as alcohol. The solvent is permitted to evaporate leaving dispersed dye solids (56) on the dye carrier (52). In a second stage, the dye carrier (52) and dispersed dye solids (56) are immersed in a wet bath (58). The method may be a hybrid of dry and wet systems of placing dye onto a substrate carrier in which the wet bath is a mixture of a dye and a solvent, such as a system lubricant. Alternatively, the immersion of the dye carrier in the second stage may be limited in duration to prevent the dye solids in the first stage from being dissolved.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 5, 2004
    Date of Patent: June 30, 2009
    Assignee: Spectronics Corporation
    Inventors: B. William Cooper, John Duerr
  • Patent number: 7467653
    Abstract: An aircraft tire having a folded belt construction and a belt edge strip over the folded belt construction has improved high speed properties. The belt edge strip substantially covers the top surface and/or the bottom surface of the folded belt in addition to the folded belt edges. The folded belt construction is reinforced with high modulus materials, and the belt edge strip is reinforced with low modulus materials. In a method of the invention, plies which make up the belt reinforcement package are applied to a belt building drum while the building drum is at different diameters to minimize stresses on the belt package. In a method of building a tire of the invention, a tire carcass on a tire building drum is expanded to the belt package.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 27, 1996
    Date of Patent: December 23, 2008
    Assignee: The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
    Inventors: John Joseph Slivka, Thomas William Cooper, Hal Warren Stilley, Jr., Oscar Allen Hash, Jerome Wesley Ward
  • Publication number: 20080288251
    Abstract: In general, the present invention converts speech, preferably recorded on a portable recorder, to text, analyzes the text, and determines voice commands and times when the voice commands occurred. Task names are associated with voice commands and time segments. These time segments and tasks may be packaged as time increments and stored (e.g., in a file or database) for further processing. Preferably, phrase grammar rules are used when analyzing the text, as this helps to determine voice commands. Using phrase grammar rules also allows the text to contain a variety of topics, only some of which are pertinent to tracking time.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 28, 2008
    Publication date: November 20, 2008
    Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: James William Cooper, Donna Karen Byron
  • Publication number: 20080265213
    Abstract: A leak detection dye carrier is formed using a two-stage process (53). In a first stage, the dye carrier (52) is saturated with a mixture (54) of a dye powder and an evaporable solvent, such as alcohol. The solvent is permitted to evaporate leaving dispersed dye solids (56) on the dye carrier (52). In a second stage, the dye carrier (52) and dispersed dye solids (56) are immersed in a wet bath (58). The method may be a hybrid of dry and wet systems of placing dye onto a substrate carrier in which the wet bath is a mixture of a dye and a solvent, such as a system lubricant. Alternatively, the immersion of the dye carrier in the second stage may be limited in duration to prevent the dye solids in the first stage from being dissolved.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 5, 2004
    Publication date: October 30, 2008
    Applicant: SPECTRONICS CORPORATION
    Inventors: B. William Cooper, John Duerr
  • Publication number: 20080249941
    Abstract: A deferred-type payment approach facilitates transaction card management and processing. According to an example embodiment, a user's transaction card purchases are authorized against a purchase limit associated with a consideration-bearing (e.g., interest-bearing) account. The purchases are tracked and, at the end of a billing cycle, provided to the user via a statement or other informative approach. During a payment time period after the end of the billing cycle, the user is afforded an opportunity to review tracked purchases and provide funds to cover the purchases. If the user does not provide funds for the purchases during the payment time period, funds are automatically transferred from the consideration-bearing account to cover the purchases at the end of the payment time period. In this regard, purchases made with the transaction card against the consideration-bearing account are not assessed against the consideration-bearing account until after the billing cycle has ended.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 17, 2008
    Publication date: October 9, 2008
    Inventor: William A. Cooper
  • Publication number: 20080205280
    Abstract: According to one aspect of one or more embodiments of the present invention, a system comprises: an HTM network executable at least in part on multiple node processing units (NPUs). In one embodiment the NPUs include one or more nodes, each of which can be executed by its NPU. In one embodiment, the present invention includes a technique for coordinating and scheduling HTM computation across one or more CPUs which (1) enables concurrent computation (2) does not require a central point of control (e.g. a controller entity that “orchestrates” the computation), (3) does not require global synchronization, (4) in some embodiments ensures that the same results are achieved whether the nodes are executed in parallel or serially.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 28, 2007
    Publication date: August 28, 2008
    Inventor: William Cooper Saphir
  • Publication number: 20080197226
    Abstract: A cord-reel includes a spool for windingly receiving a cord within a spool housing interior and a sanitizer for sanitizing the spool housing interior. According to one embodiment, the sanitizer includes an ultraviolet lamp generating ultraviolet radiation, most preferably having a wavelength between approximately 250 and 260 nanometers, and a reflector redirecting ultraviolet radiation toward the spool housing interior. A control system for activating the sanitizer may include a manual actuation switch or, alternatively, may sense when a cord is unwound from the spool to activate the sanitizer. The control system may be adapted to activate the sanitizer during a predetermined activation time period. The control system may include a light indicator for visually signaling during activation of the sanitizer. The spool housing may define first and second cord openings for respective passage of first and second ends of a cord to an exterior of the spool housing.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 30, 2007
    Publication date: August 21, 2008
    Inventors: B. William Cooper, Limin Chen
  • Patent number: 7398919
    Abstract: A deferred-type payment approach facilitates transaction card management and processing. According to an example embodiment, a user's transaction card purchases are authorized against a purchase limit associated with a consideration-bearing (e.g., interest-bearing) account. The purchases are tracked and, at the end of a billing cycle, provided to the user via a statement or other informative approach. During a payment time period after the end of the billing cycle, the user is afforded an opportunity to review tracked purchases and provide funds to cover the purchases. If the user does not provide funds for the purchases during the payment time period, funds are automatically transferred from the consideration-bearing account to cover the purchases at the end of the payment time period. In this regard, purchases made with the transaction card against the consideration-bearing account are not assessed against the consideration-bearing account until after the billing cycle has ended.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2004
    Date of Patent: July 15, 2008
    Assignee: TCF Financial Corporation
    Inventor: William A. Cooper
  • Patent number: 7344272
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a low profile, handheld inspection lamp with a unique configuration. Light of different wavelengths is emitted along different portions of the length, and an opaque slider allows the user to select the preferred wavelength of light for a particular task.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 9, 2006
    Date of Patent: March 18, 2008
    Assignee: Spectronics Corporation
    Inventors: B. William Cooper, Richard Regan
  • Patent number: D584223
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 1, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 6, 2009
    Inventor: Charles William Cooper