Famous Patents
3M employee and church chorister Art Fry needed something to temporarily mark pages in his hymnal. He was in luck because his colleague, Spencer Silver, accidentally developed a glue that was too weak for other purposes. After initially discouraging consumer response, Post-it Notes became a hit in 1979.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8185453 | Contextual access to workflow functionality Systems and methods provide access to features of a business management application at a contextually relevant locations within a global workflow. The system gathers data from various application features and user preferences and generates a global workflow diagram ... | 05/22/2012 |
| 8185426 | Method and system for providing real time appointment rescheduling A system and method for providing real-time appointment rescheduling by providing access to one or more computer-based appointment scheduling systems and a virtual open appointment wait-list associated with one or more appointment slots in the scheduling systems. On... | 05/22/2012 |
| 8180705 | Method and apparatus for initiating a funds transfer using a mobile device The invention is directed to a method and apparatus for initiating an electronic funds transfer. The system includes a first mobile device, a payment engine, and a payment repository. The first mobile device includes functionality to display a notification of a sale... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8180469 | Method and system for linking two or more portions of digital media data for playback A method and system for linking portions of digital media data during playback includes a process for linking portions of digital media data during playback whereby a user is provided the capability to link two or more digital media data tracks/segments of digital m... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8179549 | Method and system for email-based printing Some embodiments of the present invention provide a system that performs a print job. During operation, the system receives an email requesting the print job and determines, from the email, a printer associated with the print job. Next, the system configures the pri... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8177121 | Automated aggregation and comparison of business spending relative to similar businesses A system and method compares aggregated spending transactions of a target entity with those of a collection of entities. The system and method aggregates spending transactions of the target entity, and compares with the corresponding aggregated spending transactions... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8171471 | Method and system for performing initial data setup of an application A method for initial data setup of an application that includes installing the application for execution on a computer system, submitting data to a generic edition of the application using guidance from a coach to generate application formatted data, wherein the dat... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8171390 | Method and system for viewing and transferring data between documents A method and system for viewing and transferring data between documents whereby source data a user desires to transfer from a source document to the one or more data fields and/or locations of a given target electronic form, or other target document, is transformed ... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8170958 | Internet reputation manager A method and apparatus for providing an on-line reputation manager whereby review and/or ratings data associated with a given business and/or product is obtained from two or more Internet based business ratings/review system sources. The review and/or ratings data i... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8170933 | Method and system for providing a customized start-up budget for a new business A method and system for providing a customized start-up budget for a new business leverages actual business start-up data associated with one or more actual businesses in one or more locations collected by various financial management systems to provide a customized... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8166013 | Method and system for crawling, mapping and extracting information associated with a business using heuristic and semantic analysis A method and system for crawling multiple websites containing one or more web pages having information relevant to a particular domain of interest, such as details about local restaurants, extracting content from such websites, such as hours, location and phone numb... | 04/24/2012 |
| 8165997 | Method and system for classifying postings in a forum A method for classifying a previously unclassified posting that includes extracting a plurality of terms from the previously unclassified posting on an application forum, calculating a term answer probability and a term comment probability for each term of the plura... | 04/24/2012 |
| 8160624 | System and method for assigning a senderID A method for sending Short Message Service (SMS) messages includes receiving a request to generate a senderID, determining senderIDs based on a business name, and receiving a selected senderID from the senderIDs. The method further includes receiving a request to se... | 04/17/2012 |
| 8156422 | Method and apparatus for importing data from an application into a second application One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that automatically acquires data from an application and imports the data into a second application. During operation, the system receives at a data-acquisition tool a command from a user to acquire data from... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8156166 | Method and apparatus for selecting a doctor based on an observed experience level Some embodiments of the present invention provide a system that facilitates the selection of a doctor for a user. The system provides a list of doctors to the user based on an observed experience level of the listed doctors with a condition or a procedure. During op... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8156155 | Method and apparatus for displaying data models and data-model instances Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and techniques for displaying data models and data-model instances. During operation, the system can use a model graph to represent the data model and an instance graph to represent the data-model instance. In the... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8156018 | Transformation of standard document format electronic documents for electronic filing An electronic filing system may receive electronic documents including a completed tax return. The electronic documents may be of a standard document presentation format such as Portable Document Format. The electronic filing system may parse the completed tax retur... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8155950 | Method and system for providing a personalized electronic dictionary and vocabulary builder A system and method for providing a personalized dictionary and vocabulary building tool whereby data representing an electronic media based version of a document is obtained and at least a portion of the electronic media based version of a document is displayed on ... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8151344 | Method and apparatus to authenticate a user One embodiment provides a system that uses an authenticated channel to authenticate a user. The system can register a user by storing an association between a username, a password, and a unique identifier. The system can then present a login screen to the user which... | 04/03/2012 |
| 8151343 | Method and system for providing authentication credentials A method for authenticating a user, that includes receiving an account identifier from the user, obtaining a media prompt from an account based on the account identifier, presenting the user with the media prompt and a question prompt, wherein the question prompt re... | 04/03/2012 |
| 8150747 | Disposable tax return preparation device A tax return preparation kit is provided that contains a disposable tax return preparation device for receiving taxpayer input of tax related data for use in preparing an electronic tax return. The disposable tax return preparation device is adapted to prepare an el... | 04/03/2012 |
| 8145189 | Technique for securely communicating information A system that communicates information is described. During operation, this system receives an encryption key through a first wireless communication technique, wherein the first wireless communication technique includes near field communication. Then, the system com... | 03/27/2012 |
| 8135635 | System and method for time tracking on a mobile computing device The invention relates to a method for tracking time using a mobile computing device. The method steps include providing a first event manager on the mobile computing device for managing event records, wherein each event record is synchronized via an exchange server ... | 03/13/2012 |
| 8135633 | System and method for change management and transaction versioning An accounting tool may be used to manage financial data for an organization. The accounting tool may support the closing of accounting periods for the finances of the organization. The accounting tool may be configured to receive a request to modify a transaction of... | 03/13/2012 |
| 8130075 | System and method for touchscreen combination lock Systems and methods for touchscreen security gateways are described, wherein a mechanical lock simulation is presented and operated by the user of a touchscreen interface. Comparisons between entered and stored combinations may be processed and/or stored utilizing l... | 03/06/2012 |
| 8126820 | Community to support the definition and sharing of source trust level configurations A method for managing trust level in a community comprises selecting a data provider and a data entry entity from the community, wherein the community comprises data providers providing provided data, data entry entity providers providing data entry entities, and re... | 02/28/2012 |
| 8126786 | Notification and correction of E-filing rejections An electronic filing system may electronically file a tax return created by a user using a tax preparation application. The electronic filing system may receive an error indication from a taxing authority identifying a specific tax return error. The electronic filin... | 02/28/2012 |
| 8126743 | Method and apparatus for managing the selection of benefit options A method for managing the selection of benefit options includes receiving historical user data covering a first time period, and receiving benefit information including at least one benefit option applicable to a second time period. A first portion of the historical... | 02/28/2012 |
| 8122480 | Method and apparatus for facilitating interactions with an object in a digital video feed to access associated content A system that facilitates interactions with a digital video feed. During operation, the system receives the digital video feed, which includes a corresponding content feed, wherein the corresponding content feed is synchronized with the digital video feed, and where... | 02/21/2012 |
| 8117071 | Method and system for matching via an image search query at a point of sale A method for matching an unknown product to an offered product profile at a point of sale involves obtaining a first sensory input from the unknown product, where the first sensory input comprises at least a portion of an image, assigning a value to one or more char... | 02/14/2012 |
| 8108271 | Method and apparatus for lower of cost or market value monitoring and notification A method and apparatus for lower of cost or market value monitoring includes a process for lower of cost or market value monitoring and notification whereby data representing the identification and purchase price of an inventory item is obtained and the market value... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8108258 | Method and apparatus for return processing in a network-based system Method and apparatus for return processing, including tax returns. A return calculation mechanism may partition out return preparation jobs to a plurality of return calculation nodes. A job scheduler may receive returns and distribute the returns among the calculati... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8108227 | Method and system for providing healthcare claims assistance A system and method for providing healthcare claims assistance whereby a given healthcare service consumer's healthcare services data relating to a given healthcare service item is obtained and is translated into a description of the services in language, and/or a f... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8103527 | Managing insurance claim data across insurance policies A method for managing insurance claim data across insurance policies involves identifying a first insurance claim data and a second insurance claim data using pattern recognition on multiple insurance claim data associated with an insured party, where the first insu... | 01/24/2012 |
| 8103524 | Physician recommendation system A method for recommending a physician, comprising obtaining user feedback for the physician prior to obtaining a plurality of search criteria, obtaining the plurality of search criteria specifying physician expertise, identifying a plurality of physicians based on a... | 01/24/2012 |
| 8099309 | Financial policy change advisor The invention relates to a computer implemented method of estimating a first financial outcome. The computer implemented method involves obtaining financial data associated with an entity, selecting a first proposed financial policy impacting the entity, applying th... | 01/17/2012 |
| 8098239 | Systems and methods for positional number entry In various embodiments, a number entry mechanism may include a motion sensitive input device that is operable to receive a user motion along two or more dimensions. The motion sensitive input device may include input devices such as touchpads, touchscreens, mouse, e... | 01/17/2012 |
| 8095877 | Method and graphical user interface for displaying an output preview in a form-based application A computer readable medium includes executable instructions for displaying an output preview for a form-based application by accessing an output preview interface of the form-based application, displaying a navigation interface in the output preview interface, where... | 01/10/2012 |
| 8095439 | Receipt visualization and receipt data applications Visually presenting spending behavior, spending patterns, and spending activity to a consumer across of their all receipt based purchase transactions. Receipt data is received at a first or host computer from respective transaction processing devices or host systems... | 01/10/2012 |
| 8095436 | Method, graphical user interface, and system for categorizing financial records A method for categorizing financial records involves obtaining multiple financial records from a financial institution. Each financial record in the multiple financial records is categorized using a category selected from multiple categories, where the multiple cate... | 01/10/2012 |
