Category Archives: United States Patent and Trademark Office

GoGrid, Intellectual Property, SOASTA, United States Patent and Trademark Office

SOASTA Patents Cross-Cloud Grid Provisioning

SOASTA, Inc. today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued SOASTA a patent for Cross-Cloud Grid Provisioning, U.S. Patent No. 8,341,462. The technology, which SOASTA invented in 2008, enables SOASTA and its customers to realistically simulate mobile and web traffic by deploying thousands of servers across different cloud providers simultaneously. Cross-Cloud Grid Provisioning is part of SOASTA’s platform to ensure the performance and reliability of mobile apps and websites for companies and organizations like NASA, the London 2012 Olympics, Microsoft, Netflix, Intuit, and American Girl.

“SOASTA was one of the first companies in 2008 to deliver cloud computing as a service,” said Tom Lounibos, SOASTA CEO. “We knew it was critical for our customer to quickly simulate mobile and web traffic anywhere in the world to reliably test their online properties. SOASTA’s engineering team responded by developing and designing innovative technology to automate the difficult task of manually provisioning across different clouds. Now our customers and employees can easily set up and tear down huge cloud grids on-demand, deploying thousands of servers in minutes.”

Before Cross-Cloud Grid Provisioning, a lack of servers constrained performance testing. Even today, setting up servers in the cloud can take many hours. However, with Cross-Cloud Grid Provisioning, SOASTA’s Global Test Cloud is now able to leverage more than 500,000 servers in 60 global locations running on 20 providers, including Amazon, Rackspace, IBM, Microsoft, and GoGrid. Setup takes minutes – even for the largest tests.

“Cloud computing depends on rapid deployment and on-demand access,” said Melinda Ballou, Program Director for IDC’s Application Life-Cycle Management research. “Workloads like load and performance testing that can depend on a large number of variegated servers driving traffic from different locations are a logical application for cloud computing. Grid provisioning technology like SOASTA’s can provide immediate access to these load servers across environments to help with the problems users face when trying to utilize different cloud platforms for testing.”

“As the largest born-on-the-Internet apparel eCommerce company in the US, it is critical for our web applications to perform to our customer expectations, no matter where they are located,” said Michael Hart, Chief Technology Officer at Bonobos. “This latest SOASTA patent is unique in the cloud computing industry, allowing fast, scalable access to over 20 major public cloud providers to ensure that web applications like ours perform to their maximum capacity.”

Call Center, Intellectual Property, Patent, United States Patent and Trademark Office

8×8 Gets New Contact/Call Center Patent

8×8, Inc. today announced that it has been awarded a new patent related to its contact/call center technologies. On September 25, 2012, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued United States Patent number 8,275,116, entitled “Networked Contact Center.”

The patent relates to, among other things, a networked contact center that includes multiple platforms to host multiple tenants. Example embodiments of the invention include receiving a message associated with one of the tenants and identifying one or more of the platforms associated with the message. The invention also enables the networked contact center platform to access a data location that is both associated with the tenant and shared by two or more of the multiple tenants.

Since its establishment in 1987, 8×8 has been awarded eighty-three (83) United States patents covering a variety of voice and video communications, signaling, processing and storage technologies.


Customer service, Intellectual Property, Interactive voice response, Patent, United States Patent and Trademark Office

8×8 Issued New Contact Center Patent

8×8, Inc. today announced that it has been awarded a new patent related to its contact/call center technologies. On August 14, 2012, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued United States Patent number 8,243,913, entitled “Limiting Contact in a Networked Contact Center Environment.”

The patent relates to, among other things, limiting contact to a networked contact center that is a host to multiple tenants. In an example embodiment, when a communication is received by a networked contact center, a contact rate value may be examined in order to determine whether to allow the communication to reach contact center resources. The contact rate value may represent an allowable quantity of contact within a time interval. For some example embodiments, a determination of whether the network contact center is to accept or reject the communication is made based on the contact rate value.

Since its establishment in 1987, 8×8 has been awarded 82 United States patents covering a variety of voice and video communications, signaling, processing and storage technologies.


GPS, Intellectual Property, TCS, TeleCommunication Systems, TSYS, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, United States Patent and Trademark Office, United States patent law

TeleCommunication Systems Receives 35 U.S. Patents Advancing Mapping/Mobile Location, Public Safety, Messaging, Wireless Data

Image representing TeleCommunication Systems a...

TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued TCS 35 patents related to mobile location/mapping, public safety, messaging and wireless data.

Patents from this new group include 13 mapping and mobile location patents, covering navigation and route determination, location and points of interest, and techniques for locating a user:

Navigation and Route Determination:

  • “Method and System for Dynamic Estimation and Predictive Route Generation” (U.S. Patent No. 8,095,152)
  • “Stateful, Double-Buffered Dynamic Voice Prompting” (U.S. Patent No. 8,099,238)
  • “System and Method for Providing Routing, Mapping, and Relative Position Information to Users of a Communication Network” (U.S. Patent No. 8,107,608)
  • “Method and System for Enabling an Off-Board Navigation Solution” (U.S. Patent No. 8,090,534)
  • “Method and System for Saving and Retrieving Spatial Related Information” (U.S. Patent No. 8,169,343)

The location and points of interest patents provide important benefits for computing and mapping devices that receive discrete position updates for the purpose of monitoring, planning and analysis of mobile devices’ positional information used for mapping, routing and direction finding. Key aspects also include requesting and receiving audio navigation voice prompts and new methods for storing and retrieving locations and/or metadata, such as stop points and images.

Location and Points of Interest:

  • “Device-Based Trigger for Location Push Event” (U.S. Patent No.8,099,105)
  • “Predictive Ephemeral Points of Interest (PEPOI)” (U.S. Patent No. 8,156,068)
  • “Position Identification Method and System” (U.S. Patent No. 8,090,796)
  • “Wireless Network Location-Based Reference Information” (U.S. Patent No. 8,032,166)

Many navigation solutions utilize a database of points of interest (POI) to assist the user in efficiently and effectively routing to/from locations. POIs can be either fixed, such as restaurants, gas stations, etc., or moveable, such as employees and vehicles. The data associated with most POIs can be outdated, as it is stored when the system is created. Thus, conventional navigation systems, for example, would return a list of all possible gas stations to the user, regardless of operating hours, as well as whether or not the POI moved. These patents provide a means to allow the owners of POIs to securely update and post their information on a real-time basis, while also providing a means for the navigation system to predict the future locations of POIs. The patents also cover the use of location triggers for points of interest based upon previous user patterns, stored preferences, etc.

Techniques for Locating a User:

  • “Personal Location Code” (U.S. Patent No. 8,165,603)
  • “Location Fidelity Adjustment Based on Mobile Subscriber Privacy Profile (“Location and Privacy”)” (U.S. Patent No. 8,126,889)
  • “Location Derived Presence Information” (U.S. Patent No. 8,032,112)
  • “User Plane Location-Based Service Using Message Tunneling to Support Roaming” (U.S. Patent No. 8,126,458)

These inventions allow both a caller and receiver to provide each other with position information related to the caller and/or receiver’s physical location, including address information, GPS coordinates and nearby fixed locations (such as a parking structure, etc.) while the users are stationary or roaming. The user controls who accesses this information.

“TCS has long been a pioneer and leading innovator in messaging, mobile location/mapping, public safety and wireless technology,” said Maurice B. Tose, TCS chairman, CEO and president. “These 35 new patents – including the 13 mapping & location patents – demonstrate our continued commitment to apply innovative engineering solutions to improve mobile device communications.”

“There are significant opportunities to leverage our company’s 200+ patents and other intellectual property around the world, through both licensing and partnership arrangements in core and non-core business areas,” said Bob Held, TCS senior director of intellectual asset management.

With clear strengths in mobile location/mapping, public safety, messaging, and wireless communication fields, TCS has created an impressive intellectual property portfolio. Meaningful partnerships with other industry-leading companies can be developed through direct licensing, cross licensing and joint venture agreements. In 2011, TCS was issued 44 U.S. patents; for the year to date, 29 U.S. patents have been issued, bringing the total number of patents issued worldwide to TCS to date to 218, with 309 patent applications pending worldwide.

The following is a complete list of these new patents: Mobile Location/Mapping (13): 8,095,152; 8,099,238; 8,099,105; 8,166,603; 8,169,343; 8,107,608; 8,032,166; 8,032,112; 8,126,458; 8,126,889; 8,156,068; 8,090,534; 8,090,796. Public Safety (11):8,103,242; 8,068,587; 8,059,789; 8,102,972; 8,102,252; 8,116,722; 8,155,109; 8,149,997; 8,150,363; 8,150,364; 8,175,570. Wireless Data (5): 8,090,856; 8,089,401; 8,095,663; 8,127,025; 8,161,553. Messaging (4): 8,073,477; 8,090,341; 8,175,953; 8,060,429. Semiconductor Drives (1): 8,154,881. Secure Communications (1): 8,090,941.


GraphOn, Intellectual Property, Patent, United States Patent and Trademark Office, United States patent law, Web server

GraphOn Awarded Patent for “Multi-Homed Websites”

GraphOn Corporation, a developer of cloud application delivery and Web-enabling solutions, announced today that it has been issued a new patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

U.S. Patent 8,117,298, issued February 14, 2012, is directed towards an easily configurable Web server that has the capability to host (or provide a home for) multiple Web sites at the same time. This patent helps small companies or individuals create the same kind of Web presence enjoyed by larger companies that are able to afford the cost of multiple, dedicated Web server machines.

This patent protects GraphOn’s unique technology for “configuring” a Web server that has the capability to host multiple Web sites at the same time – called “multi-homing”. This multi-homing capability of the Web server provides the appearance to users of multiple distinct and independent servers at a lower cost. Functionally, a multi-homed Web server consists of, in effect, multiple virtual Web servers running on the same computer. The patent claims a design in which features can be readily added to one or more of the virtual servers. For example, a new software module having additional features or different capabilities might be substituted for an existing module on one of the virtual servers. The new features or capabilities may be added without affecting any other of the virtual servers and without the need to rebuild the Web server.

“We continue to recognize the vital importance of intellectual property in today’s marketplace,” stated Eldad Eilam, GraphOn’s interim chief executive officer. “We are pleased to add this new patent to our intellectual property portfolio, which helps to protect fundamental technology relating to both the Internet and GraphOn’s own products. Our portfolio now includes twenty-five patents, and more than 30 patent applications are pending. Our objectives include continuing to add significantly to our patent portfolio, maximizing the value of that portfolio, contributing technology to our current GO-Global product line, and providing opportunities for development of new products.”