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U.S. Patents Awarded to Inventors in California (May 8)(Targeted News Service Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Targeted News Service Targeted News Service ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- The following federal patents were awarded to inventors in California. *** Facebook Assigned Patent for Location Ranking Using Social Graph Information ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Facebook, Menlo Park, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,156) developed by Joshua Redstone, Menlo Park, Calif., Eyal Michael Sharon, San Francisco, and Srinivasa P. Narayanan, San Francisco, for a "location ranking using social graph information." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "In one embodiment, a user of a social networking system requests to check in a place near the user's current location. The social networking system generates a list of places near the user's current location, ranks the places in the list of places near the user's current location by a distance between each place and the user's current location, as well as activity of the user and the user's social contacts for each place, and returns the ranked list to the user." The patent application was filed on March 30, 2012 (13/436,453). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,156.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,156&RS=PN/84,38,156 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Google Assigned Patent for Automatic Learning of Logos for Visual Recognition ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Google, Mountain View, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,163) developed by Yuan Li, Los Angeles, and Hartwig Adam, Marina del Rey, Calif., for "automatic learning of logos for visual recognition." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for automatically extracting logos from images. Methods include generating a query list including a plurality of logo search queries, for each logo search query of the plurality of logo search queries: generating a plurality of image search results, each image search result including image data, and clustering the plurality of image search results into a plurality of clusters, each cluster including a plurality of images of the plurality of image search results, extracting, for each cluster of the plurality of clusters, a representative image to provide a plurality of representative images, and a name corresponding to the representative image to provide a plurality of names, and providing the plurality of representative images and the plurality of names to a logo index, the logo index being accessible to identify one or more logo images in a query image." The patent application was filed on Dec. 7, 2011 (13/314,061). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,163.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,163&RS=PN/84,38,163 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Google Assigned Patent for Impressions-weighted Coverage Monitoring for Search Results ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Google, Mountain View, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,155) developed by Pawel Aleksander Fedorynski, Menlo Park, Calif., and Hui Xu, Sunnyvale, Calif., for "impressions-weighted coverage monitoring for search results." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A coverage evaluator determine search results that are a subset of potential search results, the search results provided in response to search requests, wherein a covered portion of the potential search results are associated with quick review information and a non-covered portion of the potential search results are not associated with quick review information. A coverage calculator may calculate a coverage of search results, based on a relation of covered, weighted impressions of the covered portion to weighted impressions, wherein the weighted impressions include non-covered, weighted impressions of the non-covered portion, if any." The patent application was filed on Nov. 10, 2011 (13/293,991). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,155.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,155&RS=PN/84,38,155 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Microsoft Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Microsoft, Redmond, Wash., has been assigned a patent (8,438,234) developed by four co-inventors for "content channels for electronic messaging." The co-inventors are Michael C. Kunz, Seattle, Michael D. Schackwitz, Pleasanton, Calif., Ari D. Galen, Redmond, Wash., and Colin R. Anthony, Bothell, Wash. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Techniques are described to provide content channels for electronic messaging. In an implementation, a content channel may be configured to contain multiple content portions having various types of content for delivery to one or more clients. The content channel may be associated with an electronic message such as an email or instant message. The content channel and updates to the content channel may be pushed to the clients as electronic messages in an electronic messaging environment. The clients may expose a user interface having one or more portions that are arranged to present and provide interaction with the content channel. The content channel may be pinned within a designated portion of the user interface to enable repeated access to the content channel via the designated portion." The patent application was filed on March 9, 2012 (13/416,957). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,234.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,234&RS=PN/84,38,234 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Google Assigned Patent for Generating Information for Online Advertisements from Internet Data and Traditional Media Data ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Google, Mountain View, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,154) developed by Georges R. Harik, Mountain View, Calif., for "generating information for online advertisements from internet data and traditional media data." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Online information (such as advertiser Web pages in conjunction with products lists, Web content, existing online ads, etc.), or an electronic version of offline advertisement information, is used to generate online advertising information, such as a landing page, targeting information, and/or ad creative information." The patent application was filed on Sept. 29, 2003 (10/674,056). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,154.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,154&RS=PN/84,38,154 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** CA Inc. Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- CA Inc., Islandia, N.Y., has been assigned a patent (8,438,211) developed by Sanjay Radia, Fremont, Calif., Robert A. Gingell Jr., Sunnyvale, Calif., and Jerry R. Jackson, Colorado Springs, Colo., for an "evaluation of current capacity levels of resources in a distributed computing system." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "In general, this disclosure describes techniques of managing resources in a service-oriented distributed computing system. As described in this disclosure, a control node automatically manages the system such that the system has sufficient capacity to satisfy an agreement to provide a given level of a service. In order to automatically manage the system, the control node evaluates the current capacity levels of resources in the system. The current capacity levels are indicative the capacity of resources to perform certain acts. The capacity of the resources to perform these acts may be indicative of whether the system is able to provide the given level of the service. Because capacities provided by the resources change as the resources start, the control node uses a predicted pending capacity function to evaluate whether resources that are currently starting will be sufficient to satisfy the level of the service when completely started." The patent application was filed on Dec. 9, 2011 (13/316,220). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,211.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,211&RS=PN/84,38,211 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Kaseya International Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Kaseya International, New Jersey, has been assigned a patent (8,438,216) developed by George Runcie, Santa Barbara, Calif., and Derek Rodrigues, Ojai, Calif., for a "remote management of virtual machines hosted in a private network." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Management of virtual machines within a private network may be provided from a server application, such as a web application, on a machine remote from a private network. The server application receives management commands and communications the management commands in a vendor independent format to a client application within the private network. The client application receives the management commands, instantiates the management commands into a vendor specific definition and redirects the management commands to the virtual machine host for appropriate execution." The patent application was filed on May 20, 2009 (12/469,171). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,216.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,216&RS=PN/84,38,216 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Google Assigned Patent for Method and System for Generating Search Shortcuts and Inline Auto-complete Entries ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Google, Mountain View, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,148) developed by five co-inventors for a "method and system for generating search shortcuts and inline auto-complete entries." The co-inventors are Brian Rakowski, Palo Alto, Calif., Glen Murphy, Palo Alto, Calif., Ben Goodger, Los Altos Hills, Calif., Peter Andrew Kasting, San Jose, Calif., and Arnaud Weber, Saratoga, Calif. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Embodiments for generating search shortcuts and inline auto-complete entries are described herein. An embodiment includes, detecting text input in a browser, determining if the text input corresponds to an identifier from where a search was initiated and presenting one or more identifiers and an option to search content based on the determining step. Another method embodiment includes, determining if a user attempted to navigate to an identifier or if the user provided a search query, presenting one or more search results based on the search query, providing a HTTP request concurrently with the presenting step to retrieve content associated with the identifier, and presenting a user interaction area to determine if the user intended to navigate to the identifier." The patent application was filed on Sept. 1, 2009 (12/552,144). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,148.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,148&RS=PN/84,38,148 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** International Business Machines Assigned Patent for Generating Containers for Electronic Records based on Configurable Parameters ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- International Business Machines, Armonk, N.Y., has been assigned a patent (8,438,146) developed by Jean-Marc Costecalde, Irvine, Calif., for "generating containers for electronic records based on configurable parameters." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Embodiments of the invention may provide an approach for managing electronic records in a content management system. The content management system may use a container structure to create, edit, and manage electronic records in a coordinated way. The container structure may include a master container and a plurality of sub-containers. An associated method generally may include receiving a request comprising a record and one or more properties associated with the record; determining, from the one or more properties associated with the record, a date; based on the date of the record, associating the record with a sub-container of the container structure; and managing disposition of the sub-container based on an associated policy." The patent application was filed on June 30, 2011 (13/174,139). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,146.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,146&RS=PN/84,38,146 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Attainia Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Attainia, Mountain View, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,230) developed by Wayne McVicker, Los Alto Hills, Calif., for a "method and system for contextual messaging as utilized for decision support." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A method and system for contextual messaging as utilized for decision support is disclosed. According to one embodiment, a computer-implemented method, comprises receiving and storing information from an administrative client that establishes memberships of a plurality of clients to a common contextual messaging system. Nomenclature information is received from the administrative client that establishes a nomenclature for the common contextual messaging system. A first client of the plurality of clients is permitted to accessing a contextual messaging host server via a web browser associated with the first client. A message is received from the first client. A message context is determined for the message using the nomenclature information. Messages are clustered based on the message context in a message database." The patent application was filed on Oct. 13, 2008 (12/250,439). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,230.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,230&RS=PN/84,38,230 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Adobe Systems Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Adobe Systems, San Jose, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,224) developed by eight co-inventors for "methods and systems for community-based content aggregation." The co-inventors are Paul-Alexandru Chirita, Bucharest, Romania, Marius Georgian Zaharia, Bucharest, Romania, Robert Joseph Regan Jr., San Francisco, Todd Michael Groner Kopriva, Seattle, Mark Eric Nichoson, Palo Alto, Calif., Kirsti-Marie Aho, San Francisco, Alexandru Bogdan Serban, Bucharest, Romania, and Tanya Ingrid Wendling, Santa Cruz, Calif. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Certain embodiments provide systems and methods for managing elements and users of a community-based content aggregation system. An element is received that includes content associated with a community topic. The element is provided to a moderator and an approval of the element is received. The element is stored with elements attributes that can include a comment, a rating, and a label identifying a sub-topic of the community topic. A search request is received and the element is outputted in response to the request. A rating and a comment on the element is received and stored in the element attributes. Approval of the comment is received. In some embodiments, points may be awarded to a user for participating in the community and the user's user level may be modified based on the points of the user." The patent application was filed on April 24, 2008 (12/109,119). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,224.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,224&RS=PN/84,38,224 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Cisco Technology Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Cisco Technology, San Jose, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,235) developed by four co-inventors for "techniques for integrating instant messaging with telephonic communication." The co-inventors are Daniel Shaffer, Palo Alto, Calif., Labhesh Patel, San Francisco, Shmuel Shaffer, Palo Alto, Calif., and Cullen F. Jennings, San Jose, Calif. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Disclosed are apparatus and techniques for escalating an instant messaging (IM) session between two or more users to an audio session so that a communication device (by one or more users) that will optimize the audio session is selectively and intelligently utilized. In one embodiment, if an IP (Internet Protocol) phone is connected to the computer on which an IM session is being escalated, the IP telephone may be used instead of the computer device's own soft telephone so as to maximize audio clarity and quality. In another embodiment, a user's cell phone may be utilized for a mobile user who is using a laptop that is not coupled to an IP telephone or who is communicating from a hotel room in which a telephone call is typically more expensive than a cell phone call. Numerous embodiments for optimizing such audio sessions are described herein." The patent application was filed on Aug. 25, 2005 (11/213,505). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,235.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,235&RS=PN/84,38,235 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Oracle America Assigned Patent for Transactionally Consistent Database Replay in an Environment with Connection Pooling ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Oracle America, Redwood City, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,144) developed by seven co-inventors for a "transactionally consistent database replay in an environment with connection pooling." The co-inventors are Romain Colle, San Francisco, Karl Dias, Foster City, Calif., Leonidas Galanis, San Jose, Calif., Supiti Buranawatanachoke, San Mateo, Calif., Jonathan Giloni, Foster City, Calif., Efstratios Papadomanolakis, San Francisco, and Yujun Wang, Cupertino, Calif. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A method, apparatus, and computer-readable medium is provided for replaying captured workload data in a database environment with connection pools. A replay system includes a dispatcher that manages a connection pool. In one aspect, the dispatcher selects available connections for sending database commands that are ready to be executed against a database, but prevents from being sent, or holds, commands that are not ready to be executed against the database. Commands may be stored at the dispatcher until the database advances to a state that allows the commands to be executed. In another aspect, the dispatcher may use an available connection to send a command to a database instance even though the command is not ready to be executed, as long as at least a threshold number or percentage of connections remains available." The patent application was filed on Aug. 27, 2010 (12/870,736). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,144.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,144&RS=PN/84,38,144 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Oracle America Assigned Patent for Multiple Quality of Service File System Using Performance Bands of Storage Devices ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Oracle America, Redwood City, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,138) developed by Unmesh Rathi, Sunnyvale, Calif., Rex Rilen Hamilton, Ben Lomond, Calif., and Kurt Alan Shoens, Los Altos, Calif., for a "multiple quality of service file system using performance bands of storage devices." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "The invention relates to a multiple QoS file system and methods of processing files at different QoS. The file system allocates VLUNs and using rules chooses an initial QoS for a file when created and moves files to different QoS using rules. Users see a single unified space of files, while administrators place files on storage according to file attributes. A file system enhances the descriptive information for each file to contain the chosen QoS for the file. The invention classifies volumes (e.g., file systems or LUNs) according to application requirements and allocates space for volumes. An IT administrator configures volumes specifying size, type and priority. The host schedules I/O requests in priority queues using the volume definition to match applications and reduce seek time between volumes of different priorities. The data storage system therefore places data on the performance band of a storage device that best supports needs." The patent application was filed on May 15, 2009 (12/454,337). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,138.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,138&RS=PN/84,38,138 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Yahoo! Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Yahoo!, Sunnyvale, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,170) developed by four co-inventors for a "behavioral targeting system that generates user profiles for target objectives." The co-inventors are Joshua M. Koran, Mountain View, Calif., Christina Yip Chung, Mountain View, Calif., Long-Ji Lin, San Jose, Calif., and Hongfeng Yin, Cupertino, Calif. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A behavioral targeting system determines user profiles from online activity. The system includes a plurality of models that define parameters for determining a user profile score. Event information, which comprises on-line activity of the user, is received at an entity. To generate a user profile score, a model is selected. The model comprises recency, intensity and frequency dimension parameters. The behavioral targeting system generates a user profile score for a target objective, such as brand advertising or direct response advertising. The parameters from the model are applied to generate the user profile score in a category. The behavioral targeting system has application for use in ad serving to on-line users." The patent application was filed on March 29, 2006 (11/394,332). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,170.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,170&RS=PN/84,38,170 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Apple Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Apple, Cupertino, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,177) developed by Andrew Paulsen, San Jose, Calif., Christopher Crim, San Jose, Calif., and Ryan Griggs, San Jose, Calif., for a "graphical result set representation and manipulation." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A graphical user interface in a database application includes a control for manipulating a result set of a query. The control is operable to display multiple graphical representations of a result ratio between a total number of rows in a database table returned in response to the query and a total number of rows of the database table. By interacting with the control, the user can switch (e.g., toggle) between graphical representations of the result ratio. The toggling can be achieved by automatically creating supplemental queries to the database. The graphical representations can be a pie chart, bar chart, eye chart or any other graphical representation that is suitable for displaying the result ratio." The patent application was filed on Dec. 23, 2008 (12/343,255). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,177.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,177&RS=PN/84,38,177 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Hewlett-Packard Development Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Hewlett-Packard Development, Houston, has been assigned a patent (8,438,153) developed by four co-inventors for performing database joins. The co-inventors are Murali Krishna, Vancouver, Wash., Harumi Kuno, Cupertino, Calif., Vijay M. Sarathy, Portland, Ore., and Subrata Naskar, West Bengal, India. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A method of performing a database join includes receiving a query. The query may specify a join of a first table and a second table. The method further includes determining a new predicate based on a mapping between a first column of the first table and a second column of the second table for a plurality of tuples of the join. Further, the method includes modifying the query such that the query comprises the new predicate." The patent application was filed on Oct. 11, 2010 (12/901,934). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,153.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,153&RS=PN/84,38,153 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Oracle America Assigned Patent for Techniques for Bushy Tree Execution Plans for Snowstorm Schema ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Oracle America, Redwood City, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,152) developed by Rafi Ahmed, Fremont, Calif., for "techniques for bushy tree execution plans for snowstorm schema." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Methods for transforming a query to simulate a bushy tree execution plan for queries containing joins in series are provided. Left deep tree execution plans are supported by most relational database systems but are inefficient at processing queries directed to databases with snowstorm schema. A snowstorm schema contains several large fact tables and many smaller dimension tables, which make reference to one another. Bushy tree execution plans can be much more efficient for processing queries to snowstorm schema. The decision to choose between left-deep and bushy tree execution plans are based on the relative costs of the two execution plans. The methods provided transform queries which are otherwise executed with left deep tree execution plans into queries which are executed with simulated bushy tree execution plans." The patent application was filed on Oct. 29, 2007 (11/927,324). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,152.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,152&RS=PN/84,38,152 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Color Labs Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Color Labs, Palo Alto, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,233) developed by six co-inventors for a "storage and distribution of content for a user device group." The co-inventors are Vincent Mallet, Portola Valley, Calif., Jessica Cheng, Mountain View, Calif., Noah Fiedel, Palo Alto, Calif., Eric William Gillum, Sunnyvale, Calif., Ganesh Ramanarayanan, Menlo Park, Calif., and Nicholas James Woods, San Francisco. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Systems and methods for the storage and distribution of content for user device groups are presented. In one example, a device group including a plurality of user devices is defined based on logical relationships among the plurality of user devices. A group data structure corresponding to the device group is stored in a data storage device, the group data structure including a parent data structure. An item of content is received from a first user device of the device group and stored in the data storage device as a child data structure of the parent data structure. The item of content is transmitted to other user devices of the device group based on the item of content being stored in the group data structure." The patent application was filed on Feb. 24, 2012 (13/404,393). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,233.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,233&RS=PN/84,38,233 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Oracle International Assigned Patent for High-performance Log-based Processing ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Oracle International, Redwood Shores, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,169) developed by four co-inventors for high-performance log-based processing. The co-inventors are Wei Hu, Palo Alto, Calif., Yunrui Li, Fremont, Calif., Vinay Srihari, South San Francisco, Calif., and Ramana Yemeni, Cupertino, Calif. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Each of a plurality of Worker processes are allowed to perform any and all of the following tasks involving logged work items: (1) reading a subset of the work items from a log; (2) sequentially ordering work items for corresponding data objects; (3) applying a sequentially ordered set of work items to a corresponding data object; and (4) transmitting a subset of work items to a Worker process running on another database server in a cluster, if necessary. These tasks can be performed concurrently, at will, and as available, by the Worker processes. An improved checkpointing technique eliminates the need for the Worker processes to get to a synchronization point and stop. Instead, a Coordinator process examines the current state of progress of the Worker processes and computes a past point in the sequence of work items at which all work items before that point have been completely processed, and records this point as the checkpoint." The patent application was filed on Nov. 5, 2004 (10/982,135). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,169.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,169&RS=PN/84,38,169 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Raytheon Applied Signal Technology Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Raytheon Applied Signal Technology, Sunnyvale, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,201) developed by Jerry R. Hinson, Mountain View, Calif., for a digital fractional integrator. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A method and apparatus for fractional digital integration of an input signal is provided, the input signal including a time series of numerical values and the method or apparatus including applying the input signal time series to one input of a two-input summer at a time I, providing an output of the summer to a delay register at time I, providing an output of the delay register from time i-1 to a two-input multiplier, providing an output of the multiplier to the summer at time I, using a resettable counter to determine a value i and index a lookup table with i to provide the indexed value of the lookup table as an input to the multiplier, and obtaining an output signal time series from the output of the summer." The patent application was filed on April 30, 2010 (12/772,074). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,201.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,201&RS=PN/84,38,201 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Facebook Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Facebook, Menlo Park, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,181) developed by Robert J. Read, San Francisco, for an "automated writ response system." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Methods, apparatuses and systems facilitating responses to writs, such as subpoenas, in an efficient and timely manner. Implementations of the invention may include a writ response module and a queue manager to offer web service providers to automatically generate reports in response to various writs and to prioritize processing and human review prior to delivery of results." The patent application was filed on March 29, 2011 (13/074,924). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,181.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,181&RS=PN/84,38,181 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Google Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Google, Mountain View, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,171) developed by Brian Gogan, Aptos, Calif., for a "media content voting, ranking, and playing system." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Methods, systems, and apparatuses, including computer programs encoded on computer-readable media, for receiving a plurality of metadata associated with a plurality of media items. Each metadata includes a ranking score and a resource locator of the media item. Queuing media item identifiers based on the plurality of metadata and ordering the queue based on the ranking scores. Retrieving a portion of a highest-ranking unplayed media item and providing the portion to a content playback device. Receiving vote indications for an unplayed media item. The ranking score of the unplayed media is updated item based on the received vote indications. The unplayed media items are reordered in the queue based upon the updated ranking score of the unplayed media item. Retrieving a portion of a highest-ranking unplayed media item in the reordered queue and providing the portion to a content playback device." The patent application was filed on June 1, 2012 (13/486,913). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,171.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,171&RS=PN/84,38,171 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Google Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Google, Mountain View, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,142) developed by four co-inventors for "suggesting and refining user input based on original user input." The co-inventors are Jun Wu, Saratoga, Calif., Dekang Lin, Palo Alto, Calif., Zhe Qian, Saratoga, Calif., and Jie Zhou, Mountain View, Calif. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Systems and methods to generate modified/refined user inputs based on the original user input, such as a search query, are disclosed. The method may be implemented for Roman-based and/or non-Roman based language such as Chinese. The method may generally include receiving an original user input and identifying core terms therein, determining potential alternative inputs by replacing core term(s) in the original input with another term according to a similarity matrix and/or substituting a word sequence in the original input with another word sequence according to an expansion/contraction table where one word sequence is a substring of the other, computing likelihood of each potential alternative input, and selecting most likely alternative inputs according to a predetermined criteria, e.g., likelihood of the alternative input being at least that of the original input. A cache containing pre-computed original user inputs and corresponding alternative inputs may be provided." The patent application was filed on May 4, 2005 (11/122,873). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=84,38,142.PN.&OS=PN/84,38,142&RS=PN/84,38,142 Written by Amal Ahmed; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Akamai Technologies Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Akamai Technologies, Cambridge, Mass., has been assigned a patent (8,438,291) developed by five co-inventors for "managing web tier session state objects in a content delivery network (CDN)." The co-inventors are Andrew T. Davis, San Francisco, Jay G. Parikh, Redwood City, Calif., Srikanth Thirumalai, West Newton, Mass., William E. Weihl, San Francisco, and Mark Tsimelzon, Sunnyvale, Calif. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Business applications running on a content delivery network (CDN) having a distributed application framework can create, access and modify state for each client. Over time, a single client may desire to access a given application on different CDN edge servers within the same region and even across different regions. Each time, the application may need to access the latest "state" of the client even if the state was last modified by an application on a different server. A difficulty arises when a process or a machine that last modified the state dies or is temporarily or permanently unavailable. The present invention provides techniques for migrating session state data across CDN servers in a manner transparent to the user. A distributed application thus can access a latest "state" of a client even if the state was last modified by an application instance executing on a different CDN server, including a nearby (in-region) or a remote (out-of-region) server." The patent application was filed on July 26, 2010 (12/843,278). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,291&OS=8,438,291&RS=8,438,291 Written by Arpi Sharma; edited by Anand Kumar. *** Palo Alto Networks Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Palo Alto Networks, Santa Clara, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,252) developed by Nir Zuk, Menlo Park, Calif., Ravi Ithal, Fremont, Calif., and Anupam Bharali, San Jose, Calif., for managing network devices. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for managing network devices. A central management system stores shared configuration objects in a central configuration database. A network device stores shared configuration objects and device-specific configuration objects in a local configuration database. The local configuration database's shared configuration objects correspond to shared configuration objects in the central configuration database. The network device can be configured locally or using the central management system." The patent application was filed on Dec. 22, 2011 (13/335,745). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,252&OS=8,438,252&RS=8,438,252 Written by Arpi Sharma; edited by Anand Kumar. *** Google Assigned Patent for Learning Characteristics for Extraction of Information from Web Pages ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Google, Mountain View, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,080) developed by Fei Xiao, Mountain View, Calif., and Cristos Goodrow, Mountain View, Calif., for "learning characteristics for extraction of information from web pages." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A learning module of an information retrieval system is configured to automatically learn distinctive characteristics used by different web sites when presenting data variables of interest. The learned information can then be used to identify data variables of interest on arbitrary web pages of the web sites. In one embodiment, the learning process is guided by feeds provided by the web sites that list values for data variables of interest, and by web pages also provided by the web sites. The values of the feeds enable the learning module to identify candidate portions of the web pages that may represent a data variable of interest. Weights are computed for different values of various properties of the candidate portions, aggregated over all the analyzed pages, and used to identify one of the candidate portions as being the best candidates." The patent application was filed on May 28, 2010 (12/790,551). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,080&OS=8,438,080&RS=8,438,080 Written by Neha Bharti; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Cloudflare Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Cloudflare, San Francisco, has been assigned a patent (8,438,240) developed by Matthew Browning Prince, San Francisco, Lee Hahn Holloway, Santa Cruz, Calif., and Matthieu Philippe Franc Tourne, San Francisco, for "distributing transmission of requests across multiple IP addresses of a proxy server in a cloud-based proxy service." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A first packet is received at a proxy server from a client and includes a first incoming request for an action to be performed on an identified resource. The first packet is received at the proxy server as a result of a DNS request for a domain corresponding to the identified resource resolving to an IP address of the proxy server. The proxy server selects, based on at least in part on a set of parameters associated with the first packet, one of multiple IP addresses for use as a source IP address for a second packet that carries an outgoing request and transmits the second packet. The proxy server receives a third packet that includes an incoming response from the destination origin server in response to the outgoing request and transmits a fourth packet to the client that includes an outgoing response based on the incoming response." The patent application was filed on Sept. 27, 2011 (13/246,737). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,240&OS=8,438,240&RS=8,438,240 Written by Arpi Sharma; edited by Anand Kumar. *** Quantcast Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Quantcast, San Francisco, has been assigned a patent (8,438,280) developed by Paul G. Sutter, Seattle, and Konrad S. Feldman, San Francisco, for "detecting and reporting on consumption rate changes." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A method, system and computer readable storage medium for reporting on a measured change in a consumption rate. Media consumption histories for a plurality of entities are received. A monitored audience is selected from the plurality of entities by selecting entities which have completed an online purchase. A category value for each of two or more categories of media content is determined. One category of media content includes one or more items of media content. One category value represents the measured change in consumption rate for one category of media content for the monitored audience between at least two time intervals. One consumption rate is determined based on the number of times each item of media content in the one category has been delivered over a network during one time interval. A report including a reference to two or more categories and their associated category values is generated." The patent application was filed on Dec. 3, 2012 (13/692,042). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,280&OS=8,438,280&RS=8,438,280 Written by Arpi Sharma; edited by Anand Kumar. *** F5 Networks Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- F5 Networks, Seattle, has been assigned a patent (8,438,253) developed by Paul I. Szabo, Seattle, Bryan D. Skene, Seattle, and Saxon Amdahl, San Jose, Calif., for "upgrading network traffic management devices while maintaining availability." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A method, system, machine-readable storage medium, and apparatus are directed towards upgrading a cluster by bifurcating the cluster into two virtual clusters, an "old" virtual cluster (old active cluster) and a "new" virtual cluster (new standby cluster), and iteratively upgrading members of the old cluster while moving them into the new cluster. While members are added to the new cluster, existing connections and new connections are seamlessly processed by the old cluster. Optionally, state mirroring occurs between the old cluster and the new cluster once the number of members of the old and new clusters are approximately equal. Once a threshold number of members have been transferred to the new cluster, control and processing may be taken over by the new cluster. Transfer of control from the old cluster to the new cluster may be performed by failing over connectivity from the old cluster to the new cluster." The patent application was filed on May 25, 2012 (13/480,943). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,253&OS=8,438,253&RS=8,438,253 Written by Arpi Sharma; edited by Anand Kumar. *** HRL Laboratories Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- HRL Laboratories, Malibu, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,129) developed by Krzysztof Wojtek Przytula, Santa Monica, Calif., and Arthur Choi, Los Angeles, for "probabilistic implementation of system health prognosis." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Described is a system for health prognosis of a component based on the use of a graphical probabilistic model. The model comprises a layer of at least one component node representing the health of a component, a layer of at least one health observation node representing a health observation, and a layer of at least one usage node representing a usage observation. Additionally, the system is configured to collect component failure data, which is used in generating normalized failure histograms. The histograms provide failure densities for component and health observation failures. The system also computes at least one parameter for the model using component and health observation failure densities. A component prognosis is computed based on present observation of system usage and health with a history of past observation using a standard reasoning engine." The patent application was filed on May 19, 2010 (12/783,299). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,129&OS=8,438,129&RS=8,438,129 Written by Neha Bharti; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Google Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Google, Mountain View, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,122) developed by Gideon S. Mann, New York, Jordan M. Breckenridge, San Francisco, and Wei-Hao Lin, New York, for "predictive analytic modeling platform." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on one or more computer storage devices, for training a predictive model. In one aspect, a method includes receiving over a network predictive modeling training data from a client computing system. The training data and multiple training functions obtained from a repository of training functions are used to train multiple predictive models. A score is generated for each of the trained predictive models, where each score represents an estimation of the effectiveness of the respective trained predictive model. A first trained predictive model is selected from among the trained predictive models based on the generated scores. Access to the first trained predictive model is provided to the client computing system." The patent application was filed on May 14, 2010 (12/780,751). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,122&OS=8,438,122&RS=8,438,122 Written by Neha Bharti; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Intuit Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Intuit, Mountain View, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,091) developed by Kristen K. Berman, San Francisco, for a "target driven spending reduction plan." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A method for generating a spending reduction plan, includes obtaining a savings target that has a target amount and a target schedule, analyzing, using a processor of a computer system, a spending history for a plurality of spending categories to generate a historical spending pattern comprising a plurality of spending variances corresponding to the plurality of spending categories, identifying a first spending category of the plurality of spending categories by comparing the plurality of spending variances based on a pre-determined criterion, analyzing, using a processor of a computer system, a first historical savings pattern for the first spending category to determine a first reduction percentage, and generating the spending reduction plan based on the savings target, the first spending category, a first spending variance corresponding to the first spending category, and the first reduction percentage." The patent application was filed on April 30, 2009 (12/433,166). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,091&OS=8,438,091&RS=8,438,091 Written by Neha Bharti; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Juniper Networks Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Juniper Networks, Sunnyvale, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,261) developed by Atul Narendra Trivedi, San Jose, Calif., for a "failover scheme with service-based segregation." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A system provides a set of services. The system includes nodes that are in communication with each other. The system segregates the services into at least first and second groups of services, assigns the first group of services to a first set of the nodes, and assigns the second group of services to a second set of nodes. The first set of nodes provides the first group of services, and the second set of nodes provides the second group of services." The patent application was filed on May 31, 2012 (13/485,244). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,261&OS=8,438,261&RS=8,438,261 Written by Arpi Sharma; edited by Anand Kumar. *** Evri Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Evri, Seattle, has been assigned a patent (8,438,124) developed by eight co-inventors for a "system and method of a knowledge management and networking environment." The co-inventors are Nova Spivack, Tarrytown, N.Y., Boris Aleksandrovksy, San Francisco, Jonathan Qiang Li, San Francisco, Chris Jones, Mill Valley, Calif., Peter Royal, San Francisco, Lew Tucker, San Francisco, Scott White, Seattle, and Jim Wissner, San Francisco. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Systems and methods of a knowledge management networking are disclosed here. In one aspect, embodiments of the present disclosure include a method, which may be implemented on a system, of hosting a web-space having a plurality of objects, the plurality of objects to include one or more of, representations of a set of users, a set of web-items, and a set of nets; wherein a net of the set of nets is a subset of the web-space comprising a sub-plurality of the plurality of objects. One embodiment can include, tracking an explicit relationship between a first set of at least two objects of the set of objects; the explicit relationship to be pre-determined by a user of the set of users, identifying an implicit relationship between a second set of at least two objects of the set of objects; the implicit relationship to be identified based on a semantic relationship between the at least two objects, and determining a default set of privacy rules governing access between the at least two objects based on one or more of the identified explicit relationship and the implicit relationship." The patent application was filed on Oct. 18, 2007 (11/874,882). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,124&OS=8,438,124&RS=8,438,124 Written by Neha Bharti; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Amazon Technologies Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Amazon Technologies, Reno, Nev., has been assigned a patent (8,438,084) developed by five co-inventors for a "method and system for inventory verification." The co-inventors are Lawrence Tesler, Seattle, Udi Manber, Palo Alto, Calif., Hilliard B. Siegel, Seattle, Charles Gordon, Seattle, and Varun Narang, Issaquah, Wash. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Verification of an inventory of stored products may be achieved by obtaining an image of the stored products and using text, optical character, and other feature recognition techniques to determine product identification and storage location. A comparison between earlier and current images of the same storage location is used to identify which locations have changed, i.e., from which locations have products been moved, removed, or added. The earlier and current images of the changed locations may be displayed to a user to visually inspect the differences between the images and verify the changes in inventory represented by those differences." The patent application was filed on June 9, 2004 (10/864,291). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,084&OS=8,438,084&RS=8,438,084 Written by Neha Bharti; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Hewlett-Packard Development Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Hewlett-Packard Development, Houston, has been assigned a patent (8,438,259) developed by six co-inventors for a "web application usage of accessory device directly connected to electronic device in non-networked manner." The co-inventors are Keith E. Moore, Sunnyvale, Calif., Randall Edward Grohs, Star, Idaho, Jeremy Barlow, Boise, Idaho, Shane R. Konsella, Star, Idaho, Michael Hudson, Boise, Idaho, and Cooper G. Urie, Boise, Idaho. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "An accessory device is directly connected in a non-networked manner to an electronic device. The accessory device is to be used by a web application running on a computing device connected to the electronic device over a network. The accessory device has a shared context or an owned context. The shared context specifies that usage of the accessory device is shared among the web application and one or more other web applications. The owned context specifies that the usage of the accessory device is exclusive to the web application and not to any other web application." The patent application was filed on Oct. 30, 2010 (12/916,514). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,259&OS=8,438,259&RS=8,438,259 Written by Arpi Sharma; edited by Anand Kumar. *** Raytheon Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Raytheon, Waltham, Mass., has been assigned a patent (8,438,128) developed by David M. Doria, Lakewood, Calif., for "empirical modeling of confusion matrices." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A method and system of estimating the performance of a classifier system based on a reported confusion matrix includes, in one embodiment, parameters fit to observed confusion matrices, such that the expected performance of decision detection versus the probability of not-in-library reports can be estimated based on the forced decision confusion matrix. The approach also lends itself to a general methodology for modeling classes of confusers in a statistical manner, which can be extended to modeling clutter severity." The patent application was filed on Oct. 23, 2009 (12/604,539). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,128&OS=8,438,128&RS=8,438,128 Written by Neha Bharti; edited by Jaya Anand. *** BlackRock Fund Advisors Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- BlackRock Fund Advisors, San Francisco, has been assigned a patent (8,438,100) developed by Matthew Tucker, Orinda, Calif., and Steve Laipply, San Francisco, for "investment funds enabling a bond laddering strategy." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "An open-ended fund, such as an ETF, holds fixed-income securities and has a liquidation date. An order management system receives buy orders from a plurality of investors for purchasing shares of the fund receives and sell orders from a plurality of investors for selling shares of the fund. A fund management information system determines a yield for each investor based on the shares of the fund purchased by the investor and the fixed-income securities held by the fund at the time that the shares were purchased. The fund management information system also determines a plurality of distribution payments and a final liquidation payment for each investor so that the distribution payments and the final liquidation payment provide the yield determined for the investor when the investor purchased shares of the fund. This enables investors to use the fund in a bond laddering strategy." The patent application was filed on Dec. 10, 2010 (12/965,788). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,100&OS=8,438,100&RS=8,438,100 Written by Neha Bharti; edited by Jaya Anand. *** AT&T Intellectual Property I Assigned Patent for Method and Apparatus for Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Data in a Communication Network ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- AT&T Intellectual Property I, Atlanta, has been assigned a patent (8,438,264) developed by five co-inventors for a "method and apparatus for collecting, analyzing, and presenting data in a communication network." The co-inventors are Kevin James Moisan, Castro Valley, Calif., Juan Carlos Martinez, Danville, Calif., Michael Tisiker, Westland, Mich., Dick Khan, San Ramon, Calif., and Amit Rele, San Jose, Calif. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Methods and apparatus for monitoring a communication network are disclosed. A disclosed method of monitoring a communication network periodically collects data from a plurality of network elements within the communication network. The disclosed method analyzes the collected data in accordance with a rule that corresponds to a characteristic of performance or capacity of the plurality of network elements to form performance or capacity data representative of a user experience of the communication network. The disclosed method then presents the performance or capacity data via a web browser using a plurality of view levels and types." The patent application was filed on Dec. 28, 2004 (11/024,540). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,264&OS=8,438,264&RS=8,438,264 Written by Arpi Sharma; edited by Anand Kumar. *** University of California Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- The University of California, Oakland, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,126) developed by Mark van der Laan, Orinda, Calif., for "targeted maximum likelihood estimation." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A method for obtaining an estimator for a distribution pertaining to a dataset is provided. In an illustrative embodiment, the method includes obtaining a dataset; determining a question pertaining to the data; determining an initial estimator descriptive of a distribution of the data; and selectively modifying the initial estimator based on the question, yielding a targeted estimator in response thereto. In a more specific embodiment, selectively modifying the initial estimator includes applying an additional equation and/or a fluctuation function to the initial estimator to yield the targeted estimator, wherein the additional equation or fluctuation function parameter (.epsilon.) causes the initial estimator to fluctuate or change as a function of the parameter. The fluctuation function is chosen so that when the parameter .epsilon. is set to zero, the initial estimator is not fluctuated. The targeted estimator and a fluctuation function may be employed in an accompanying targeted Bayesian method that involves mapping a prior distribution of a target feature to a posterior distribution of the target feature." The patent application was filed on Oct. 4, 2007 (11/867,364). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,126&OS=8,438,126&RS=8,438,126 Written by Neha Bharti; edited by Jaya Anand. *** Aventail Assigned Patent ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8 -- Aventail, Sunnyvale, Calif., has been assigned a patent (8,438,254) developed by six co-inventors for "providing distributed cache services." The co-inventors are Chris A. Hopen, Shoreline, Wash., Gary B. Tomlinson, Woodinville, Wash., John Brooke, Gig Harbor, Wash., Derek W. Brown, Sunnyvale, Calif., Jonathan Burdge, Renton, Wash., and Rodger D. Erickson, Lawrence, Kan. The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A network appliance is described that can provide a variety of software services, including both platform services, such as access method services, and a load balancing service. A network may include a network appliance that both provides one or more platform services and acts as a load balancer. When two or more such appliances are used together, they can replace a substantial portion of a conventional network. For example, when a network appliance receives a client communication, its load balancer service can determine whether one of its own platform services will process the communication or forward the communication to another network appliance for processing. Moreover, if the load balancing service of a network appliance fails, another network appliance can provide load balancing. Similarly, if another service of a network appliance fails, then the network appliance may continue to provide load balancing but forward communications requiring the failed service to another network appliance for processing." The patent application was filed on Oct. 29, 2007 (11/927,321). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,438,254&OS=8,438,254&RS=8,438,2 For more information about Targeted News Service products and services, please contact: Myron Struck, editor, Targeted News Service LLC, Springfield, Va., 703/304-1897; [email protected]; http://targetednews.com. -1124095 (c) 2013 Targeted News Service |