Optimization Patents (Class 705/14.43)
  • Patent number: 10417659
    Abstract: A method, apparatus and computer program product are provided for integrated sales management. A sales resource may use the system to track and modify promotion proposals for providers. Data defining the proposed promotion may include information relating to the provider, capacity, the promotion structure, return on investment, and/or an auto-approval status. Some data defining the proposed promotion may be automatically generated by the promotional system and/or modified by the provider. The proposal may be auto-approved or approved manually by a sales resource. Upon approval, the promotion may be made available for sale.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 17, 2014
    Date of Patent: September 17, 2019
    Assignee: GROUPON, INC.
    Inventors: Kavita Kochar, Marcus Sacco
  • Patent number: 10397169
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and non-transitory computer readable media can define a communication item associated with a social networking system, including a plurality of parameters that are each associated with one or more possible values. A plurality of variants of the communication item can be determined based on values associated with the plurality of parameters. A first set of weights associated with the plurality of variants can be determined. Each weight in the first set of weights can be associated with a variant of the plurality of variants. Each variant of the plurality of variants can be provided to a proportion of a first group of users that corresponds to a weight in the first set of weights associated with the variant.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 4, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 27, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Brian Paihan Sa, Eytan Bakshy, Alexander Kalicki
  • Patent number: 10387902
    Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer program product are disclosed to improve generation of electronic communications. The method may provide a plurality of content slots each configured to receive content, the content comprising at least one of promotion content or non-promotion content. The method may also include maintaining a database comprising a plurality of promotion content generators and non-promotion content generators, and determining, using a processor, one of the plurality of promotion content generators or non-promotion content generators for respectively supplying corresponding promotion content or non-promotion content to each of the plurality of content slots. The determining the one of the plurality of promotion content generators or non-promotion content generators may include determining selection parameters, and scoring the plurality of promotion content generators and non-promotion content generators based at least in part on the selection parameters.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 28, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2019
    Assignee: GROUPON, INC.
    Inventors: Jeff Ayars, Ruslan Gilfanov, Jeff Holden, John M. Nickels, Pete Prokopowicz, Dan Roarty, David Thacker
  • Patent number: 10366119
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer programs are presented for selecting content items for presentation to a user device of a user. One method includes an operation for measuring dwelltimes for a plurality of content items, where the dwelltime for a content item is based on the amount of time that the content item is displayed to a viewer. Further, the method includes an operation for training a classifier of content items based on the measured dwelltimes and based on features associated with the first set of content items, where the training includes calculating a relative importance of respective features for increasing measured dwelltimes. Additionally, the method includes an operation for sending additional content items to be presented on the user device based on the one or more ranking parameters, where the additional content items are associated with one or more ranking parameters that are expected to increase dwelltimes for the user of the user device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 10, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 30, 2019
    Assignee: Oath Inc.
    Inventors: Xing Yi, Scott Gaffney, Jean-Marc Langlois
  • Patent number: 10366401
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for optimizing the placement of advertisement blocks on a web page.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 30, 2019
    Assignee: Google LLC
    Inventors: Brandon M. Pearcy, Nathan P. Lucash
  • Patent number: 10346862
    Abstract: A system implements a method of migrating users to target services including segmenting the users of the target services into macrosegments and micro segments within each macro segment. For each micro segment, rankings of the target services for the users in the micro segment are determined. The rankings are based on the combinations of the target services owned by the users in the micro segment product association, a sequence for acquiring the target services owned by the users in the micro segment, propensities to acquire the target services, and eligibility of the target services for the users in the micro segment. The target services are selected for migration based on the rankings.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 5, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 9, 2019
    Assignee: ACCENTURE GLOBAL SOLUTIONS LIMITED
    Inventors: Sundaravadivelan Ramamoorthy, Arun Venkatesan, Dhruv Garg, Lan Guan, Athina Kanioura, John D. Bolze
  • Patent number: 10275782
    Abstract: Query threshold values are determined to be used to select advertisements to be displayed in response to a search query. A query threshold value is determined for each query based on query attributes characterizing the query, such as a query frequency, query length, whether the query is a navigational query, etc. By generating a threshold value for each query, and using the query threshold value for selecting advertisements to be displayed for the query (e.g., selecting advertisements having quality scores greater than the query threshold value), the advertisements can better correspond to the query, and thus are more likely to be selected by the user. As a result, the user experience can be enhanced and the advertising revenue can be correspondingly increased.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 28, 2010
    Date of Patent: April 30, 2019
    Assignee: Excalibur IP, LLC
    Inventors: Arun Kumar Gnanamani, Ankur K. Gupta
  • Patent number: 10268758
    Abstract: The present invention provides a semantic information acquisition method and system, and corresponding keyword expansion and search methods and systems, comprising: searching for, then classifying an article; then, performing word segmentation according to the classified article to obtain the words in said category, and setting said category and words to serve as the semantic information of the keyword; also, a method and system using the semantic information acquisition method to expand a keyword, and a method and system using keyword expansion to perform a search. The described semantic information acquisition method effectively avoids the technical problems in the prior art of only being able to obtain semantic information of English vocabulary; and it also being impossible to classify semantic information based on category information. The invention is particularly suitable for searching using a keyword, searching a large number of texts, and organizing large amounts of related data and information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 23, 2019
    Assignees: PEKING UNIVERSITY FOUNDER GROUP CO. LTD., FOUNDER APABI TECHNOLOGY LIMITED, PEKING UNIVERSITY
    Inventors: Mao Ye, Zhi Tang, Jianbo Xu, Lifeng Jin, Wei Wan
  • Patent number: 10242388
    Abstract: A system and method of selecting on-line advertisements in a real-time bidding exchange is disclosed. A bid request associated with a first data set is received. Advertisements are filtered based on each advertisement's campaign constraints as applied to the first data set. A heuristic score for each filtered advertisement is determined based on a small subset of features from the first data set or randomly generated. A bid value is then determined based on a substantial number of the features from the first data set only for each of a top fraction of filtered the advertisements that have the highest heuristic scores. A final bid value and its associated advertisement is selected and sent to a sender of the bid request for presenting in an on-line advertisement space as an impression.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 5, 2016
    Date of Patent: March 26, 2019
    Assignee: Amobee, Inc.
    Inventors: Jianqiang Shen, Fang Bian, Tai-Ping Yu
  • Patent number: 10229442
    Abstract: The innovation disclosed and claimed herein, in one aspect thereof, comprises systems and methods for optimized communications based on a customer emotional state. In aspects of the system and method, a customer social media account is analyzed for past social media posts. Customer emotional states are determined for the past social media posts. The past social media posts are also associated with financial transactions made by the customer such that emotional states are linked to specific financial transactions. The system and method monitor the customer social media account for new social media posts. A new social media post can be detected. An emotional state can be determined for the new social media post. The system and method collect the financial transactions with the same emotional state. The system and method generate an offer for similar products and/or related to the financial transactions. The offer is communicated to the customer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 17, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 12, 2019
    Assignee: WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A.
    Inventor: Roohi Moolla
  • Patent number: 10198497
    Abstract: When conducting the same or similar search, different users can use different search terms and phrases, resulting in an increase in the quantity of unique search terms and phrases. The intent of the various search terms and phrases is determined based on clustering of the terms and phrases of the various users. User search terms bare clustered using semantic and syntactic distances. Thus, the search engine receives a search query from a user and computes a similarity between and among user search terms. The computation uses syntactic techniques to analyze lexical aspects of linguistic terms, and semantic techniques to consider activity of the user in the particular field of interest. A similarity metric is used to determine the similarity between two search terms by computing their syntactic and semantic distances. A clustering technique is then used to cluster search terms based on their pair-wise distance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 9, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 5, 2019
    Assignee: [24]7.AI, INC.
    Inventors: Viswanath Gangavaram, Darshan Hedge
  • Patent number: 10169802
    Abstract: Price and product attributes from webpages are imported, indexed, analyzed, and made available to be searched in close-to realtime, allowing search for price changes specific to products on individual webpages and for products across all webpages as well as to identify longitudinal correlations between price changes and product attributes. Users may search the data and set alerts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 6, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2019
    Assignee: Indix Corporation
    Inventors: Satyanarayana Rao Kalikivayi, Mohammed J. Zahoor, Sanjay Parthasarathy
  • Patent number: 10163125
    Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for conducting media lift studies for online advertising concurrently with operating an advertising campaign. While operating an advertising campaign for a first advertiser/client focused primarily on a set of intended ads and a specific targeted viewer audience, a non-intended ad is occasionally substituted to run in an ad slot, and is tracked as belonging to the first advertiser/client. The non-intended ad can be for example one of: an ad for a second advertiser/client; an alternate ad for the first advertiser/client; or a blank/unrelated ad. After the campaign, attribution results for the intended ads are adjusted according to those for non-intended ads to provide an indication of net media lift resulting from the intended ads—typically at no additional cost to the first advertiser/client. Analysis results may also be compared between different attribution data providers to determine which provide the more accurate attribution data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 19, 2015
    Date of Patent: December 25, 2018
    Assignee: ADOBE SYSTEMS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: John Hughes, Boaz Ram, Jason Lopatecki
  • Patent number: 10152731
    Abstract: A method for processing ads involves traversing an ad view hierarchy to obtain ad view information for a device, providing the ad view information to an ad server, sending, by the device, an ad request to the ad server, receiving, in response to the ad request, an ad. and displaying the ad on the device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 11, 2018
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Gabor Cselle, Nassar Stoertz, Tural Badirkhanli, Carl Joseph Blubaugh
  • Patent number: 10136170
    Abstract: Methods and systems are disclosed for an optimization system that recommends amounts of resources for use in reaching viewers during a media asset. The optimization system, using control circuitry, receives a user input of a first value of a resource and determines a first rate at which a number of unique household viewers reached during a first media asset changes for the first value. The optimization system compares the first rate to a threshold rate and determines whether the first rate equals or exceeds the threshold rate. The optimization system, in response to determining that the first rate does not equal or exceed the threshold rate, recommends a second value to the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 31, 2015
    Date of Patent: November 20, 2018
    Assignee: Rovi Guides, Inc.
    Inventors: Samuel Meyer, Randall Kelley, Matthew Emans, Walter R. Klappert, Steven Bennett
  • Patent number: 10108920
    Abstract: In response to receipt of a process-level input request that is subject to business-level requirements, multiple sets of attributes are identified. The sets of attributes are each from one of multiple informational domains that represent processing factors associated with at least the process-level input request, contemporaneous infrastructure processing capabilities, and historical process performance of similar processes. The multiple sets of attributes from the multiple informational domains are hashed as a vector into an initial process prioritization. The attributes of the hashed vector of the multiple sets of attributes from the multiple informational domains are weighted in the initial process prioritization into a hashed-weighted resulting process prioritization. The process-level input request is assigned to a process category based upon the hashed-weighted resulting process prioritization.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 20, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 23, 2018
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Can P. Boyacigiller, Swaminathan Chandrasekaran
  • Patent number: 10089647
    Abstract: A computer-implemented method for optimizing publisher profits in online advertising based on real market movements is provided. The method may include dividing an advertisement (ad) placement for an ad unit into a plurality of levels. The method may also include generating a plurality of variables that are configured to test for the real market movements between levels. The method may further include processing ad impressions based on the plurality of variables within a time period to evaluate the real market movements for the ad unit, and determining whether to adjust one or more of the minimum floor prices based on a score for each variable calculated within the time period.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 16, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 2, 2018
    Assignee: SULVO, LLC
    Inventor: Romeo Szilveszter Juhasz
  • Patent number: 10079911
    Abstract: A mechanism is provided in a data processing system for content analysis based automatic selection of user communities or groups of users. The mechanism receives content to be published from a user and performing content analysis on the content to identify a context of the content. The mechanism identifying a social collaboration community based on the user's associations with social collaboration communities, the context of the content, and a community registry of social collaboration communities. The mechanism publishes the content in the identified social collaboration community.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 4, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 18, 2018
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Ram Krishnamurthy, Anurag Srivastava
  • Patent number: 10049378
    Abstract: Push reporting is disclosed. A first payload comprising feature reporting information and meta information is received from a first device at a first time. A second payload comprising feature reporting information and meta information is received from a second device at a second time. At respective third and fourth times, respective third and fourth payloads are received from the first and second devices, respectively. The third and fourth payloads include additional feature reporting information and meta information. The processing of the information received from the first and second devices is coordinated. A request for information is received. Metrics are provided as output. The metrics are based at least in part on the processing of the information received from the first and second devices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 20, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 14, 2018
    Assignee: Urban Airship, Inc.
    Inventors: Gary Todd Johnson, Erik A. Onnen, Dave K. Revell, Jeffrey A. Towle, Nathan A. Putnam
  • Patent number: 10037549
    Abstract: Systems and methods for providing conversion metrics for ads related to the housing industry or the employment industry are provided. A system can identify a plurality of ads provided for display to a plurality of identifiers. Each of the plurality of ads is related to one of a housing industry or an employment industry. The system can identify, for an advertiser providing a subset of the identified plurality of ads, one or more identifiers to which the subset of the identified plurality of ads are provided for display. The system can determine, from a location database that includes location information of the plurality of identifiers, a number of identifiers of the identifiers to which the subset of the identified plurality of ads are provided for display that changed locations. The system can then provide, to the advertiser, a conversion metric based on the number of identifiers that changed locations responsive to determining that the number of identifiers is greater than a predetermined threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 31, 2018
    Assignee: Google LLC
    Inventors: Lakshmi Kumar Dabbiru, Senthil Kumar Hariramasamy
  • Patent number: 10015108
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus include computer programs encoded on a computer-readable storage medium, including a method for providing content. A first call for content to be published on a resource associated with a publisher is received from a requesting device. A determination is made when the publisher has authorized additional content item calls to be automatically generated responsive to receipt of the first call. A first content item responsive to the first call is determined. A message including call parameters is generated that define publisher or serving system criteria for the additional content items. The first content item and message responsive to the first call are provided. A second call for content, in conformance with the call parameters, is received after processing the message. A second different content item that is responsive to the second call is provided for publication on the resource along with the first content item.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 3, 2018
    Assignee: Google LLC
    Inventors: Nathan P. Lucash, Venu Vemula, Lukasz Bieniasz-Krzywiec, Alessio Pace, Radoslav M. Kirov
  • Patent number: 9947018
    Abstract: Systems and methods provide for generating time-slot samples to which content may be assigned for measuring effects of the assigned content. Systems and methods provide for receiving viewer visit duration (VVD) that target viewers spend at a location where content is to be presented and receiving time intervals (TI) for data collection for data streams of interest that target viewers can affect during their visit to the location. A time-slot sample duration (TSSD) is determined using VVD and TI. Time-slot samples are generated that have a duration defined by the TSSD and a data collection period defined for at least a portion of the TSSD.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 2008
    Date of Patent: April 17, 2018
    Assignee: 3M Innovative Properties Company
    Inventors: Brian E. Brooks, Michael K. Canavan
  • Patent number: 9894205
    Abstract: An agent's performance is measured using a predictive model calculating an expected probability of success for each outbound communication, such as a call, handled by the agent that has reached the desired (“right”) party. An agent's cumulative actual performance value is maintained based on each “successful” contact, as indicated by a disposition code provided by the agent. A cumulative expected probability value of a “successful” communication is also maintained based on each call that reaches the right party where the expected probability of a “successful” call is determined by the predictive model. The agent's performance value can be determined by comparing the cumulative actual performance value with the cumulative expected probability of success value. The agent's performance value can then be compared to the performance value of other agents to identify agents performing above-expectations or below-expectations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 13, 2018
    Assignee: NOBLE SYSTEMS CORPORATION
    Inventors: Thomas Miller, William D. Andrews, Daniel N. Duncan
  • Patent number: 9891967
    Abstract: To implement a multi-touch attribution model, a conversion event resulting from user activity is programmatically detected. A set of events that precede the conversion event is identified. Respective events of the set occur on respective websites. The conversion event is attributed to multiple websites of the respective websites.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 16, 2015
    Date of Patent: February 13, 2018
    Assignee: AGGREGATE KNOWLEDGE, INC.
    Inventors: Matthew David Curcio, Robert Lawrence Grzywinski, Benjamin Charles Linsay
  • Patent number: 9846567
    Abstract: A technique relates to flash-optimized data layout of a dataset for queries. Selection columns are stored in flash memory according to a selection optimized layout, where the selection optimized layout is configured to optimize predicate matching and data skipping. The selection optimized layout, for each selection column, is formed by storing a selection column dictionary filled with unique data values in a given selection column, where the unique data values are stored in sorted order in the selection column dictionary. Row position designations are stored corresponding to each row position that the unique data values are present within the given selection column, without duplicating storage of any of the unique data values that occur more than once in the given selection column.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 16, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 19, 2017
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Rini Kaushik
  • Patent number: 9838755
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided for determining a lift metric regarding effectiveness of a digital ad campaign for an audio-visual work on subsequent viewership of the audio-visual work. Viewed content from a universe of monitored AV audio-visual devices is collected. Identifiers of audio-visual devices that received an ad impression for the audio-visual work are also collected. The lift metric may be determined from statistical analysis of this data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 4, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 5, 2017
    Assignee: Alphonso Inc.
    Inventors: Raghu Srinivas Kodige, Ashish Chordia, Lampros Kalampoukas, Nikhil Sahasrabudhe
  • Patent number: 9830353
    Abstract: Example processes for determining a match type include: receiving a query token from a content provider; consulting a database stored in memory to determine past performance of the query token for associated content, where the past performance includes performance information indicating how well the query token performed for different match types, where a match type indicates a way that components of the query token match components of another query token in order to achieve a token match; determining, based on the performance information, differences in performance between ones of the different match types; comparing the differences in performance to a threshold; and selecting a match type for the query token based on the comparing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 28, 2017
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Aditya Dalmia, Nipun Kwatra, Pranav Kumar Tiwari, Kiran S. Panesar
  • Patent number: 9832157
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method and system for providing notification of events. Specifically, embodiments disclosed herein describe a method and system for generating dynamic messages based on events and transmitting the dynamic messages to various users over a social networking platform. Embodiments include receiving product data and comparing the product data to a set of predefined trigger parameters. If it is determined that the product data satisfies one or more of the trigger parameters, a dynamic message is generated. In certain embodiments, the content of the dynamic message is based, at least in part, on the product data. The generated dynamic message is then automatically transmitted to a set of recipients over the social networking platform.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 28, 2017
    Assignee: ONYX WEBSITES LLC
    Inventors: Brian Robert King, Mark Sean Roylance, Milo Richard LeBaron, Fululele Duke Neria
  • Patent number: 9794188
    Abstract: Systems and methods for monitoring the performance associated with fulfilling resource requests and determining optimizations for improving such performance are provided. A processing device obtains and processes performance metric information associated with processing a request corresponding to a set of resources. The processing device uses the processed performance metric information to determine a resource configuration to be associated with the set of resources. In some embodiments, in making such a determination, the processing device assesses performance metric information collected and associated with subsequent requests corresponding to the content associated with the set of resources and using each of a variety of alternative resource configurations. The processing device may also consider a number of factors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 4, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 17, 2017
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Mark S. Baumback, David William Bettis, Jonathan A. Jenkins
  • Patent number: 9779122
    Abstract: Apparatus and methods are provided for indexing electronic content to be served to users' mobile and/or stationary communications and computing devices. An index is composed of multiple slices, with each slice storing multiple entries and each entry representing one content item or one campaign or collection of content items. An entry is populated with tokens representing attribute/value pairs of a target audience of the content item and/or property/value pairs of the item or the item's campaign. A query or request to identify content items for serving to a particular user is similarly formatted with tokens representing attribute/value pairs of the user and/or item/campaign. Queries can then be executed rapidly across any or all index entries in any or all slices. Within a slice, entries may be sorted by value or score, and integer components within an individual entry may be sorted to facilitate rapid comparison with a query.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 10, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 3, 2017
    Assignee: LinkedIn Corporation
    Inventors: Hardik N. Bati, Nihar N. Mehta
  • Patent number: 9767479
    Abstract: This specification describes technologies relating to content presentation. In general, one aspect of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include the actions of identifying advertisements that are candidates to be provided within an advertising slot of the content segment, determining, based on respective bids, and the exposure interval, which advertisement will generate greater revenue within the advertising slot, and, providing such an advertisement in the advertising slot. Other embodiments of the various aspects include corresponding systems, apparatus, and computer program products.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 25, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 19, 2017
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Momchil Filev, Martin Freund
  • Patent number: 9754266
    Abstract: The present invention provides techniques for use in association with online advertising, relating to use of serving thresholds, associated with predicted click through rates, and delivery policies, associated with advertising inventory serving and distribution. An offline-trained machine learning-based model may be utilized in advertising serving decision-making in connection with serving opportunities. However, serving thresholds and delivery policies, for use in association with the model in serving decision-making, may be adjusted online, such as in real-time or near real-time, based on information obtained online affecting factors such as predicted click through rates and advertising inventory distribution.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 21, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 5, 2017
    Assignee: Excalibur IP, LLC
    Inventor: Qiong Zhang
  • Patent number: 9727316
    Abstract: In one implementation, an electronic package of assets substantially complying with a standard is received from a content provider. Placeholders in an application referring to items of content defined by the standard are replaced with items of content from the package of assets. In another implementation, an electronic package of assets substantially complying with a standard is received from a content provider. A publisher is identified, the package of assets is provided to the publisher, and an application incorporating items from the package of assets is received. In another implementation, a package of assets substantially complying with a standard is prepared, an application is received from a publisher, and a version of the application is generated, replacing references in the application to items defined in a standard with items of content from the package of assets.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 8, 2017
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Mayur Datar, Allen Huang, Siavash Sedigh Nejad
  • Patent number: 9729716
    Abstract: A system for enabling collaboration between two or more customer contact campaigns running within a call center environment includes at least one outbound contact server (OCS) resident on a digital medium, the OCS including an automated dialer application resident on a digital medium thereon or accessible thereto for dialing contact numbers from contact records assembled for the running campaigns, a call monitoring and recording system executing from software on a digital medium, for monitoring call dialing progress and business results of completed calls, a central data repository for storing dialing progress and business results data collected by the running outbound campaigns, and a data sharing mechanism executing from software resident on a digital medium, accessible to each campaign running on the OCS for sharing collected data among the running campaigns.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 20, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 8, 2017
    Assignee: GENESYS TELECOMMUNICATIONS LABORATORIES, INC.
    Inventors: Stanislav V. Zgardovski, Vadim Y. Zyarko, Oleksiy M. Kolomoyskyy
  • Patent number: 9721272
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, for determining a mixture ratio for allocating portions of an advertising budget among different advertising channels (e.g., print, online, radio, television) to optimize a performance measure, such as cost-per-action. A mixture space is used to define the available advertising channels and any constraints placed on those channels, such as no more than fifty percent of the advertising budget being allocated to a particular channel, and test mixture ratios are selected according to an optimality criterion. The selected test mixture ratios are used during a testing period on live traffic. The performance measures from the test mixture ratios are used to select a preferred mixture ratio from the mixture space.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 10, 2009
    Date of Patent: August 1, 2017
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: James R. Koehler, Elizabeth Van Alstine
  • Patent number: 9661382
    Abstract: A method includes receiving over the top streaming video content, wherein the over the top streaming video content is provided by a content provider to end users and determining at least one theme associated with the over the top streaming video content. The method also includes receiving at least one commercial advertising video clip associated with at least one commercial advertiser and mapping the at least one commercial advertising video clip to the over the top streaming video content. The method includes inserting at least one break into the over the top streaming content, and presenting the at least one commercial advertising video clip at the at least one break.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 5, 2014
    Date of Patent: May 23, 2017
    Assignee: VERIZON PATENT AND LICENSING INC.
    Inventors: Dahai Ren, Ming Chen
  • Patent number: 9658735
    Abstract: The invention provides in one aspect a method that includes identifying one or more rules for execution by a rules engine in order to generate a user interface. The method further includes executing, on a digital data processing system that comprises one or more digital data processors, a step of determining whether one or more aspects of the user interface generated as a result of execution of at least one of those rules is in conformity with one or more requirements. The system responds to a negative such determination, according to the method, by identifying modifications to generate a conforming user interface from those one or more rules, modifying one or more of those rules to generate a conforming user interface from (e.g., based directly or indirectly on) those one or more rules, and/or generating a conforming user interface from those one or more rules. The method further calls for storing to and/or generating as an output from the digital data processing system a result those step(s).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 2, 2014
    Date of Patent: May 23, 2017
    Assignee: Pegasystems Inc.
    Inventors: Alan Trefler, Baruch Sachs
  • Patent number: 9514480
    Abstract: An advertisement delivery management apparatus according to an embodiment includes a predicted information storage unit, an allocating unit, and a reallocating unit. The predicted information storage unit stores information including user attributes of a plurality of delivery target users predicted as future advertisement delivery destinations. The allocating unit allocates the delivery target user to an advertisement delivery order request based on the information stored in the predicted information storage unit. The reallocating unit performs a reallocating process of exchanging the delivery target user allocated to the order request with a non-allocated user who is the delivery target user that has not been allocated to the order request.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 2013
    Date of Patent: December 6, 2016
    Assignee: YAHOO JAPAN CORPORATION
    Inventors: Kazuhiko Shimura, Koji Tsukamoto, Akira Tajima, Hiroyuki Kato, Takenobu Dei
  • Patent number: 9495655
    Abstract: In response to receipt of a process-level input request that is subject to business-level requirements, multiple sets of attributes are identified. The sets of attributes are each from one of multiple informational domains that represent processing factors associated with at least the process-level input request, contemporaneous infrastructure processing capabilities, and historical process performance of similar processes. The multiple sets of attributes from the multiple informational domains are hashed as a vector into an initial process prioritization. The attributes of the hashed vector of the multiple sets of attributes from the multiple informational domains are weighted in the initial process prioritization into a hashed-weighted resulting process prioritization. The process-level input request is assigned to a process category based upon the hashed-weighted resulting process prioritization.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 27, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 15, 2016
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Can P. Boyacigiller, Swaminathan Chandrasekaran
  • Patent number: 9483253
    Abstract: A method of provisioning a dynamically customized default application installation to a user equipment (UE). The method comprises detecting that a Mobile Directory Number (MDN) is being assigned to a UE, and querying, in response to the detecting, at least one data store to identify demographic data and usage data associated with a subscriber account to which the MDN has been assigned. The method further comprises identifying areas of subscriber interest based on an analysis of the demographic data and usage data, ranking at least one application according to priority of inclusion in a customized interface pack, assembling the customized interface pack, wherein assembling the customized interface pack comprises including one or more applications in the customized interface pack based on priority of inclusion, and sending the customized interface pack to the UE, wherein the customized interface pack is installed on the UE.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2015
    Date of Patent: November 1, 2016
    Assignee: Sprint Communications Company L.P.
    Inventors: Nathan M. Schwermann, M. Jeffrey Stone
  • Patent number: 9460466
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus include computer programs encoded on a computer-readable storage medium, including a method for providing content. A request is received for content to be displayed on a resource to a user. The user is identified. Candidate content items are identified from an inventory of content items that are responsive to the request. The candidate content items are evaluated including determining bid-eligible content items including content items that satisfy an eligibility threshold based on an eligibility status associated with a respective candidate content item. The eligibility status is based at least in part on results associated with past opportunities to present a content item to identified user. An auction is conducted to identify a winner from among the bid-eligible content items. The winning content item is provided responsive to the request. An eligibility status is updated for losing and winning content items in the auction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 15, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 4, 2016
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Sergei Vassilvitskii, Andrei Z. Broder
  • Patent number: 9395870
    Abstract: A message selection system may include a memory device to store a plurality of messages. Each message may prompt a user to provide a respective predetermined response. The message selection may further include a processor in communication with the memory device. The processor may determine at least one condition associated with a channel configured to transmit the plurality of messages to a user interface. The processor may further select, in response to the at least one condition associated with the channel, at least one of the plurality of messages to be transmitted to the user interface over the channel. A method and computer-readable medium may also be implemented in message selection.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 19, 2016
    Assignee: Teradata US, Inc.
    Inventors: Donald George Dureau, Jr., David L. Perona
  • Patent number: 9380413
    Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a system for dynamically forming the content of a message to a user based on a perceived emotion state of the user. During operation, the system determines a geo-location of a user. Next, the system analyzes a news feed associated with the geo-location of the user to determine a perceived emotion state of the user. The system then forms a content for a message to the user based on the perceived emotional state of the user. Finally, the system delivers the message.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 29, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 28, 2016
    Assignee: INTUIT INC.
    Inventor: Rekha M. Joshi
  • Patent number: 9367524
    Abstract: Apparatus and method for dynamic web page layout optimization. In accordance with some embodiments, a plurality of different layouts are defined for a web page of a publisher. Each of the different layouts have at least one common element and at least one content slot adapted to display a content item. A request for the web page is received from a network accessible device having associated profile information, and a selected layout is identified using the profile information. At least one content item is selected for display in each content slot of the selected layout. Data are thereafter transferred to the network accessible device to display the web page arranged in accordance with the selected layout along with the selected content item.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 6, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 14, 2016
    Assignee: Google, Inc.
    Inventors: Momchil Filev, Johnny Chen
  • Patent number: 9298860
    Abstract: Separate models are built to predict the likelihood of conversion based on the presence or absence of one or more features. For example, a first model may be built to predict the likelihood of conversion of a non-converter who has never visited an advertiser's website before and a second model may be built to predict the likelihood of conversion of a non-converter who has visited an advertiser's website before. To determine which model to apply to an entity, the consumption history of the entity is searched for the presence or absence of the one or more features used to separate the models. The entity's consumption history is then scored based on the applicable model to determine the likelihood of conversion.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 29, 2016
    Assignee: Quantcast Corporation
    Inventors: Daniel Ciprian Preda, Peter William Kassakian
  • Patent number: 9195668
    Abstract: A file shard store includes high performance encoding and compaction circuits. An apparatus and its method of operation avoids duplicate storage of file fragments. A plurality of tables control write operations into a plurality of log segments. Shard keys are transferred to uniquely identify fragments of files which may have been previously stored and associated with one or more of client subscribers. An apparatus comprises a plurality of location/subscription tables, a shard transfer circuit, a storage control circuit, an append-to-log circuit coupled to a large storage array, and a log segment compactor circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 18, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 24, 2015
    Assignee: Barracuda Networks, Inc.
    Inventor: Josef Sipek
  • Patent number: 9191687
    Abstract: The performance of a content package can be influenced by a variety of factors, at least some of which can be identified by analyzing user interaction events. The user interaction events can be analyzed to generate data representative of the current performance of the content package. Based on the performance data, one or more modifications can be identified and recommended to the content package owner. A modification can include a change in file size, a change in encoding quality, a change in a component, and/or a change in a presentation rule.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 6, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2015
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventor: Michael Froimowitz Greenzeiger
  • Patent number: 9047380
    Abstract: A technique for providing one or more keywords associated with a document (such as a web page) is described. In this technique, a set of user-selected keywords and a specification of a market segment associated with the document are received from a user. In response, a set of similar keywords (which can include one or more of the set of user-selected keywords) is determined based on the user-selected keywords. Furthermore, a market-specific set of keywords (which can also include one or more of the set of user-selected keywords and/or the set of similar keywords) is selected based on the set of similar keywords by using keywords for documents that are associated with other users in the market segment. Then, at least a subset of the set of market-specific keywords is provided to the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2009
    Date of Patent: June 2, 2015
    Assignee: INTUIT INC.
    Inventors: David F. Lish, Christopher H. J. Whittam, Indraneel Bhattacharyya, Joe T. Callinan
  • Publication number: 20150149273
    Abstract: A method, a server, and a computer program for optimizing online advertisement that is booked via a communication network in a system for realtime booking of online advertisement in the communication network on a particular network page, at a particular time, in association with a particular search term, and/or as a particular type of online advertisement. In order to increase the relevance of the online advertisement to a user of a client of the communication network, a server that is connected to the communication network automatically scans a broadcast radio program running on at least one station, the server automatically evaluates the broadcast radio program for the purpose of recognizing the content, and the server optimizes the online advertisement according to a particular algorithm on the basis of the result of the evaluation of the broadcast radio program.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 16, 2014
    Publication date: May 28, 2015
    Inventor: Rene Schweier
  • Patent number: 9043223
    Abstract: Configurations for targeting nearby geographic locations for managing content are disclosed. The subject technology identifies one or more geographic locations for targeting content from a campaign for delivery to users and the campaign associated with a content sponsor. One or more geographic locations that are nearby the one or more geographic locations associated with the campaign are automatically presented to the content sponsor, including presenting candidate nearby geographic locations and estimated reach information along with each candidate geographic location. The subject technology receives a selection of one or more candidate geographic locations for inclusion in the campaign, and adds the selection to the campaign.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 16, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 26, 2015
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Shu Niu, Amin Charaniya, Jamie Samdal, Krzysztof Duleba, Jessica Mignone, Audrey Yang, Prabhu Balasubramanian, James Dowdell, Doris Bruneder, Aileen Tang, Smita Hashim, Ankur Gupta, Graham Jenkin