Did You Know...
...that the Slinky toy was the result of a failed attempt by engineer Richard James to produce an antivibration device for ship instruments? His goal was to develop a spring that would instantaneously counterbalance the wave motion that rocks a ship at sea. Instead, he developed the Slinky.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7953779 | Configuration representation and modeling using configuration spaces Configuration spaces facilitate the useful presentation of data, particularly configuration data used for representing configured products. Products include features and common features can be grouped by families. For example, an automobile can include a transmissio... | 05/31/2011 |
| 7882057 | Complex configuration processing using configuration sub-models A configuration model dividing and configuration sub-model inference processing system and procedure addresses the issue of configuration model and query complexity by breaking a configuration problem down into a set of smaller problems, solving them individually an... | 02/01/2011 |
| 7584155 | Method and apparatus for efficient delta pricing A method includes generating a delta price and generating a final price using the delta price. A process and system provide an ability to determine a product's final price with a selected set of features in which multiple configurations are to be generated. The abil... | 09/01/2009 |
| 7206756 | System and method for facilitating commercial transactions over a data network A method, a computer system and a computer program product to facilitate comparison-price shopping over a data network, such as the Internet, is provided that includes a price availability feature guaranteeing a price of a product associated with product-related inf... | 04/17/2007 |
| 7203701 | System and method for an interface to provide visualization and navigation of a directed graph A method and system for providing an interface that allows navigation and display of a directed graph are provided. The interface provides visualization of an underlying graph structure comprising a plurality of hierarchies with shared common nodes, wherein the hier... | 04/10/2007 |
| 7200583 | Method and apparatus for attribute selection The invention provides a method and apparatus for selecting desired attributes for system configuration. The invention uses one or more rule sets to define rules that are met when a configuration is valid. A rule set may specify the interrelation of attribute values... | 04/03/2007 |
| 7200582 | Configuration model consistency checking using flexible rule space subsets Inconsistencies between configuration rules represent a significant concern when modeling a product using configuration rules. The consistency checking system approaches a configuration model from the perspective of a sets of features and families. The configuration... | 04/03/2007 |
| 7188335 | Product configuration using configuration patterns In a particular embodiment, configuration patterns are used to provide solutions to configuration problems that repetitively occur. Use of configuration patterns in connection with a configuration model has many benefits. A configuration patterns is a parameterized ... | 03/06/2007 |
| 7130821 | Method and apparatus for product comparison A method of comparing products is disclosed. The method includes selecting a first configuration representing a first product with a first attribute, selecting a second configuration representing a second product with a second attribute, and displaying the first att... | 10/31/2006 |
| 7110988 | Automated system and method for creating aligned goals A method of aligning a new goal of an entity ensures that the new goal is a child goal of a parent goal. The method also ensures that a group is linked to the parent goal, and ensures that the entity is subordinate to the group. In one embodiment, selection lists co... | 09/19/2006 |
| 7092740 | High density information presentation using space-constrained display device A high-density information presentation is provided on a space-constrained display device by associating individual display indications with user-definable states. For example, using a portion of a space-constrained display of a mobile phone, pager personal digital ... | 08/15/2006 |
| 7082454 | Dynamic content caching framework A dynamic content caching framework that encodes dynamically created documents with a filename that is derived from the state information describing the contents of the document, advantageously allows for the dynamically created documents to be cached and reused, th... | 07/25/2006 |
| 7043407 | Method and apparatus for configuring systems The present invention employs a generative approach for configuring systems such that a system may be configured based on component or resource requests, or input in the form of need. The present invention provides a constraint-based configuration system using a str... | 05/09/2006 |
| 7003360 | System and method for product configuration using numerical clauses and inference procedures A system and method for product configuration represents a product using a configuration model having numerical clauses. Features of the product are associated with literals in the numerical clauses. The numerical clauses may specify a number of literals to determin... | 02/21/2006 |
| 6978273 | Rules based custom catalogs generated from a central catalog database for multiple entities An arbitrary number of custom catalogs for an arbitrary number of customers can be published from a centrally maintained database of seller catalog data. The custom catalogs are subsets of the catalog database, and are generated in accordance with a set of rules tha... | 12/20/2005 |
| 6949022 | Distributed secrets for validation of gaming transactions Nested commit/reveal sequences using randomized inputs from each participant in a gaming transaction (e.g., the house and each player) may be employed to provide a selection of outcome or outcomes that can be verified by each participant as free from cheating. In ge... | 09/27/2005 |
| 6907414 | Hierarchical interface to attribute based database The present invention provides a hierarchical interface to an attribute based database. The method includes organizing a number of classifiers of data into a hierarchical structure and organizing the data into the hierarchical data structure according to the classif... | 06/14/2005 |
| 6865524 | Method and apparatus for attribute selection The invention provides a method and apparatus for selecting desired attributes for system configuration. The invention uses one or more rule sets to define rules that are met when a configuration is valid. A rule set may specify the interrelation of attribute values... | 03/08/2005 |
| 6836766 | Rule based configuration engine for a database The invention provides the ability to test rules in a rule-based system for configuring a product. The configuration system defines the components of a product using elements contained in a parts catalog and rules that define relationships between the components of ... | 12/28/2004 |
| 6834287 | Classification engine for managing attribute-based data A classification engine provides flexible support for manipulation of attribute-based data by dynamic generation of SQL with classifiers constructed from different schema objects representing different database schemas. The classifiers may be constructed by defining... | 12/21/2004 |
| 6834282 | Logical and constraint based browse hierarchy with propagation features A logical and constraint-based hierarchical approach provides a highly flexible and expressive way in which to browse items stored in a database. The logical and constraint-based approach permits a user to create an arbitrary number of hierarchical representations o... | 12/21/2004 |
| 6754654 | System and method for extracting knowledge from documents A program product characterizes a set of information to determine common characteristics among subsets of the set of information. The program product includes computer instructions which obtain characteristic data that describe characteristics of an entity. For exam... | 06/22/2004 |
| 6678695 | Master data maintenance tool for single source data A maintenance tool is used to import and centrally maintain the data and metadata representing catalog items in a catalog database. The maintenance tool is further used to create and maintain constraint-based rule sets defining custom catalogs that are su... | 01/13/2004 |
| 6674450 | Interactive data-bound control A computer system including a server computer system and a client computer system connected to one another over a computer network, such as the Internet, so that graphical controls displayed and able to be manipulated by a user on the client computer syst... | 01/06/2004 |
| 6675294 | Method and apparatus for maintaining and configuring systems The invention provides the ability to interactively select and configure a product among a set of related products based on availability and compatibility of features and options. It does not impose an order in the selection of products, features or optio... | 01/06/2004 |
| 6662164 | Method and apparatus for determining commission The invention provides for a method and apparatus for determining the commission to be paid to a sales representative or sales team. Whenever a sale occurs, a Transaction describing the sale is created and inputted into the Commission system of one embodi... | 12/09/2003 |
| 6647396 | Classification based content management system A classification based content management system provides a content management system in which large amounts of content may be quickly and easily managed. More specifically, the classification based content management system of the present invention uses ... | 11/11/2003 |
| 6629153 | Method and apparatus for providing peer ownership of shared objects A method and apparatus for providing peer ownership of shared objects. In the invention, shared objects are implemented as a shell object with shared object state stored in shared memory. Each process that shares the object is granted a shell object withi... | 09/30/2003 |
| 6553350 | Method and apparatus for pricing products in multi-level product and organizational groups The system organize various pricing tables and price adjustment tables and various products and purchasing organizations based on "who" (i.e. which purchasing organization) is purchasing "what" (i.e. which product). The system and method utilizes a denorm... | 04/22/2003 |
| 6430730 | Flash configuration cache The present invention employs a generative approach for configuring systems such that a system may be configured based on component or resource requests, or input in the form of need. The present invention provides a constraint-based configuration system ... | 08/06/2002 |
| 6157922 | Method and apparatus for transparent backtracking A technique is used in embodiments of the invention such that backtracking programs can be written in a general purpose computer language (e.g., C++ or Java) without requiring the control structure of the program to reflect the structure of the decision t... | 12/05/2000 |
| 6115547 | Flash configuration cache The present invention employs a generative approach for configuring systems such that a system may be configured based on component or resource requests, or input in the form of need. The present invention provides a constraint-based configuration system ... | 09/05/2000 |
| 6002854 | Method and apparatus for configuring systems The present invention employs a generative approach for configuring systems such that a system may be configured based on component or resource requests, or input in the form of need. The present invention provides a constraint-based configuration system ... | 12/14/1999 |
| 5878400 | Method and apparatus for pricing products in multi-level product and organizational groups The invention organizes various pricing tables and price adjustment tables and various products and purchasing organizations based on "who" (i.e. which purchasing organization) is purchasing "what" (i.e. which product). The invention utilizes a denormaliz... | 03/02/1999 |
| 5825651 | Method and apparatus for maintaining and configuring systems The invention provides the ability to interactively select and configure a product among a set of related products based on availability and compatibility of features and options. It does not impose an order in the selection of products, features or optio... | 10/20/1998 |
| 5708798 | Method and apparatus for configuring systems The present invention employs a generative approach for configuring systems such that a system may be configured based on component or resource requests, or input in the form of need. The present invention provides a constraint-based configuration system ... | 01/13/1998 |
| 5515524 | Method and apparatus for configuring systems The present invention employs a generative approach for configuring systems such that a system may be configured based on component or resource requests, or input in the form of need. The present invention provides a constraint-based configuration system ... | 05/07/1996 |
| 5369732 | Method and apparatus for goal processing memory management The present invention is a method and apparatus for managing memory in goal processing. The present invention creates search states that contain an alternative subgoal (i.e., subgoal with alternatives) and non-alternative subgoals. Problem state modificat... | 11/29/1994 |
