NEC Assigned Patent

NEC Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (8,949,779) developed by Nishimura, Shoji, Tokyo, Japan, for a “service combination support apparatus, service combination support method, and storage medium.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A service combination proposing unit, (12) inquires of a data item relationship inferring unit, (13) about a data item connectable to a specific data item. The data item relationship inferring unit 13 infers a data item connectable to the specific data item based on pairs of output data items and input data items that are registered in a data item relationship storage unit, (32) and have already been determined to be connectable and based on inference rules registered in an inference rule storage unit, (33). The data item relationship inferring unit, (13) then returns the inferred data item to the service combination proposing unit, (12). The service combination proposing unit, (12) presents the returned data item to a developer or the like.“

The patent application was filed on May 14, 2009 (12/991,782).