Dropbox Assigned Six Patents

Prioritizing structural operations and distributing changes in synced online content management
Dropbox, Inc., San Francisco, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,348,821) developed by Hunter, Rian, Euresti, David, Smith, Brian, Chen, Alicia, Sydell, Alex, Motes, Aston, and Tang, Jie, San Francisco, CA, for “prioritizing structural operations and distributing changes in a synced online content management system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Disclosed are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for prioritizing structural operations and distributing changes in a synced online content management system. An exemplary method can include receiving, from a first client device, a first structural operation for a particular content item and an account within the online content management system. The method can also include receiving, from a second client device, a competing structural operation for the particular content item and the account. The method can then include prioritizing the first structural operation from the first client device over the competing structural operation from the second client device based on predetermined factors. The method can then include executing the first structural operation for the particular content item and the account. The exemplary method can then include distributing the prioritized first structural operation to all synced devices for execution.”

The patent application was filed on December 21, 2012 (13/724,747).

Data loss prevention for online content management
Dropbox, Inc., San Francisco, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,346,629) developed by Vora, Rohan, Santa Clara, CA, and Mansour, Yosrie, Tel Aviv, Israel, for “data loss prevention for an online content management platform.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Disclosed are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for providing content management features in a messaging service. A content management system is configured to receive an update to a rule in a data loss prevention, (DLP) policy, to identify, based on a log of DLP violations, one or more content items for updating content management permissions, and to update the content management permissions for the one or more content items based on the update to the rule.”

The patent application was filed on December 28, 2016 (15/392,428).

Organizing network-stored content items into shared groups
Dropbox, Inc., San Francisco, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,331,757) developed by Houston, Drew, and Beckmann, Chris, San Francisco, CA, for an “organizing network-stored content items into shared groups.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for adding users to groups of content items organized into events based on a common attribute. An example system configured to practice the method can receive, from a client device, content items uploaded to a synced online content management system, wherein the content items are associated with an account of a first user. The system can cluster at least some of the content items as an event, wherein the event is associated with a common attribute, and identify a second user satisfying a minimum similarity threshold for the event based on the common attribute. The system can provide a suggestion to share the event with the second user. Upon receiving a confirmation of the suggestion, the system can make content items clustered in the event available to the second user.”

The patent application was filed on January 17, 2018 (15/873,055).

Managing distributed deletes in replicated storage
Dropbox, Inc., San Francisco, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,296,518) developed by Cowling, James, and Mallipeddi, IV, Venkata Harish, San Francisco, CA, for “managing distributed deletes in a replicated storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A data storage system includes multiple storage zones that store replicated copies of data items. Upon receiving a delete operation at a particular time to delete a data item, the system computes a maximum last update time based on the particular time and a minimum data item lifetime. Based on determining that a copy of the data item is stored in the data storage zone, the system then determines a last update time of the data item. In addition, based on determining that the last update time is less than the first maximum last update time, the system deletes the copy of the data item from the data storage zone.”

The patent application was filed on January 5, 2017 (15/399,249).

Storage constrained synchronization of shared content items
Dropbox, Inc., San Francisco, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,248,705) developed by Newhouse, Benjamin Zeis, San Francisco, CA, for “storage constrained synchronization of shared content items.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A content management system synchronizes content items across client computing systems connected by a network. Each client device has a storage allocation for synchronized shared content items. A client application on each client computing system creates shadow items, representing the content item but only containing the metadata of the content item. Attributes of the content item represented by the shadow item are stored in a file journal entry corresponding to the shadow item. When viewing attributes of the shadow item in the file system of the client computing device, the client device displays the attributes corresponding to the content item represented by the shadow item as opposed to the attributes of the shadow item itself. The attributes may show that the shadow item occupies negligible space on disk while displaying a non-zero content item size.”

The patent application was filed on July 13, 2016 (15/209,672).

Using scratch extents to facilitate copying operations in append-only storage
Dropbox, Inc., San Francisco, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,248,356) developed by Cowling, James, San Francisco, CA, and Turner, James, Mountain View, CA, for “using scratch extents to facilitate copying operations in an append-only storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”An append-only data storage system is described that stores sets of data blocks in extents that are located in storage devices. During operation of the system, upon receiving a request to copy an extent from a source storage device to a destination storage device, the system creates a scratch extent on the destination storage device, and associates the scratch extent with a private identifier, whereby the scratch extent can only be accessed through the private identifier. The system uses the private identifier to perform a copying operation that copies the extent from the source storage device to the scratch extent on the destination storage device. After the copying operation is complete and the scratch extent is closed, the system associates the scratch extent with a public identifier, whereby the copy of the extent on the destination storage device becomes publically accessible to other entities in the data storage system.”

The patent application was filed on October 21, 2014 (14/519,907).