Microsoft Technology Licensing Assigned Twenty-Three Patents

Encoding optimization for obfuscated media
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,163,854) developed by Verthein, William George, Sammamish, WA, and Hassan, Amer Aref, Kirkland, WA, for an “encoding optimization for obfuscated media.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “In a device including a processor and a memory in communication with the processor, the memory includes executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to control the device to perform functions of dividing a video image into a plurality of encoding blocks, the video image including a sharing-protected portion, adjusting, based on a size or location of the sharing-protected portion, a configuration of the encoding blocks such that the sharing-protected portion is divided into a smaller number of the encoding blocks, individually encoding, based on the adjusted configuration of the encoding blocks, the encoding blocks, and transmitting, to a remote device via a communication network, the individually encoded encoding blocks.”

The patent application was filed on January 8, 2020 (16/737,857).

Hard link operations for files in file system
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,163,730) developed by Das, Rajsekhar, Sammamish, WA, and Carey, Omar, Redmond, WA, for “hard link operations for files in a file system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Methods, systems, and computer storage media for providing data operations using hard links (hard link operations) for files in a file system are provided. Accessing files using hard link operations is based on File_Name-to-File_ID mappings and File_ID-to-File_Object mappings stored in hard link data structures. In operation, a file name for file content is received to perform a data operation. The file content is accessed using the file name. The file name is associated with a hard link data structure having a File_Name-to-File_ID mapping and a File_ID-to-File_Object mapping. The file name is also associated with an alternate file name for the file content. The alternate file name is associated with an alternate hard link data structure having an alternate File_Name-to-File mapping and the File_ID-to-File_Object mapping. The alternate file name is received. The file content is accessed using the alternate file name to perform an alternate data operation on the file content.”

The patent application was filed on May 13, 2019 (16/411,133).

Dynamically allocated thread-local storage
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,163,677) developed by Ostrovsky, Igor, Redmond, WA, Hoag, Joseph E., Kenmore, WA, Toub, Stephen H., and Liddell, Mike, Seattle, WA, for “dynamically allocated thread-local storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Dynamically allocated thread storage in a computing device is disclosed. The dynamically allocated thread storage is configured to work with a process including two or more threads. Each thread includes a statically allocated thread-local slot configured to store a table. Each table is configured to include a table slot corresponding with a dynamically allocated thread-local value. A dynamically allocated thread-local instance corresponds with the table slot.”

The patent application was filed on November 20, 2018 (16/196,757).

Accessing remote files
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,157,461) developed by Cook, Randall R., and Goodman, Kevin, Suwanee, GA, for “systems and methods for accessing remote files.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The present systems and methods generally relate to the elimination or reduction of network traffic required to support operations on a file of any size stored remotely on a file server or network share. More particularly, the present systems and methods relate to encapsulation of a remote file in such a way that the file appears to the local operating system and any local applications to be residing locally, thus overcoming some of the performance issues associated with multiple users accessing a single network share (e.g., CIFS share) and/or a single user remotely accessing a large file.”

The patent application was filed on May 24, 2017 (16/303,583).

Adaptive spare block usage in SSD
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,150,825) developed by Kashyap, Abhilash Ravi, San Jose, CA, and Shah, Monish Shantilal, Sammamish, WA, for an “adaptive spare block usage in solid state drives.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “In non-limiting examples of the present disclosure, systems, methods and devices for partitioning dies based on spare blocks and workload expectations are provided. Data from non-volatile storage media may be received. The data may comprise information identifying each of a plurality of dies included in the non-volatile storage media and a number of blocks included in each of the plurality of dies. A number of spare blocks included in each of the plurality of dies may be determined. First and second sets of the plurality of dies may be identified, wherein the first set has a higher number of spare blocks than the second set. A first workload may be assigned to the first set of dies, the first workload being classified as write-intensive. A second workload may be assigned to the second set of dies, the second workload being classified as read-intensive.”

The patent application was filed on December 5, 2019 (16/704,575).

Immutable storage for cloud service providers
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,150,816) developed by Fritz, Krisjan David, Redmond, WA, Bhalgat, Pratik, Woodinville, WA, Mani, Dhivakar, Redmond, WA, and Sah, Maneesh, Sammamish, WA, for an “immutable storage for cloud service providers.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A cloud service provider supports immutable data on its servers and the immutable data is movable across multiple access tiers, in which each access tier affects access performance and cost. In typical implementations, the immutable data may be blobs of unstructured data such as text or binary data, multimedia, among other data types, which are organized into containers that provide a directory for user interaction with the data. Policies are applied at the container-level which regulates user interactions with the containers and the container’s blobs. A policy can, for example, prohibit modification and deletion of blobs within a container until a policy’s set retention period expires. After expiration of the retention period, the container and that container’s blobs may be deleted, but blob modification may still be prohibited. A user interface is configured to enable a user to move containers to other access tiers while the container maintains its policy.”

The patent application was filed on September 25, 2018 (16/141,104).

Available, scalable, and tunable document-oriented storage services
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,144,600) developed by Shukla, Dharma, Bellevue, WA, and Raman, Karthik, Issaquah, WA, for “available, scalable, and tunable document-oriented storage services.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “An application on a device may interact with a document service that provides access to a document service. The interaction may occur in a variety of contexts, such as a device context (e.g., the document service and the application provided on the same device, a local context (e.g., via a LAN), and a remote context (e.g., over the Internet). It may be advantageous to adapt the interaction to the current context, while also providing a consistent application interface that alleviates the application from context-specific implementations, and also achieving this adaptation in a performant manner. These considerations may be achieved in a balanced manner by providing a set of runtimes, where each runtime mediates the application/document service interaction between the application and the document service in a contextually adapted manner. The device may automatically detect the context of the interaction and select a contextually suitable runtime to service the application.”

The patent application was filed on September 10, 2019 (16/566,111).

Data recovery using bitmap data structure
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,144,397) developed by Battepati, Roopesh, Bellevue, WA, Johnson, Michael C., Bothell, WA, Kadam, Manoj, Redmond, WA, Wang, Raymond, Kirkland, WA, Prasad, Ganesh, and Zhu, Ziquan, Bellevue, WA, for a “data recovery using bitmap data structure.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Examples of the present disclosure describe implementing bitmap-based data replication when a primary form of data replication between a source device and a target device cannot be used. According to one example, a temporal identifier may be received from the target device. If the source device determines that the primary replication method is unable to be used to replicate data associated with the temporal identifier, a secondary replication method may be initiated. The secondary replication method may utilize a recovery bitmap identifying data blocks that have changed on the source device since a previous event.”

The patent application was filed on September 12, 2014 (14/484,592).

Correlating errors to processing steps and data records to facilitate understanding of errors
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,144,377) developed by Grealish, Kevin David James, Garden, Euan, Lee, Craig Allen, Gomez, Jose Ramon Calzada, and Coulson, Michael James, Redmond, WA, for “systems and methods for correlating errors to processing steps and data records to facilitate understanding of errors.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A computer program file or a sequence of processing steps from an authoring environment of a data processing system is used to generate a graph including nodes representing the processing steps is generated. Unique identifiers (tags) are assigned to the nodes. One or more processing steps are optionally modified while preserving the original identifiers. If an error occurs during execution, error information is saved including the processing step that failed and data records that triggered the failure. The identifier of the failed processing step is attached to the error information. The error information is collected and processed. The collected error information is used to correlate the error to the failed processing step and to data records triggering the error using the identifier of the failed processing step recorded with the error information. The correlated error information indicates cause and location of the error.”

The patent application was filed on May 31, 2019 (16/428,943).

Moving storage volumes across network boundaries
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,140,224) developed by Padiyar, Vinayak Uppunda, Bellevue, WA, Kakani, Ramakanth, Mill Creek, WA, and Moradi, Mehrdad, Redmond, WA, for “moving storage volumes across network boundaries.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The present disclosure relates to systems, methods, and computer readable media for moving storage volumes between virtual networks. For example, systems disclosed herein may manage mapping data including mappings between virtual networks and storage volumes. In particular, the systems disclosed herein may maintain mappings between virtual network identifiers (e.g., IP addresses) and globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) associated with respective storage volumes. A control plane may move storage volumes between virtual boundaries by modifying mapping entries based on a received request to move storage volume(s). By maintaining and modifying mapping data in this way, systems disclosed herein facilitate access to a storage device between different virtual networks without performing a computationally expensive and time-consuming process of physically moving data between storage volumes on a cloud computing system.”

The patent application was filed on March 6, 2020 (16/812,262).

Editing using secure temporary session-based permission model in file storage
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,132,457) developed by Spektor, Daron, Seattle, WA, Rathore, Jyotsana, Kirkland, WA, Barreto, Jose A., Chan, Kevin Andrew, Redmond, WA, Henderson, Peter Daniel, Bellevue, WA, and Kaczka, Gabriela Kornelia, Vancouver, Canada, for “editing using secure temporary session-based permission model in a file storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A system is provided for controlling access to data stored in a cloud-based storage service. Data associated with a user account is stored at the cloud-based storage service. A portion of the data is associated with a heightened authentication protocol, a first request receiving, at the cloud-based storage service, for an application to access data that is associated with the heightened authentication protocol. The first request is authenticated based on the heightened authentication protocol. In response to authenticating the first request, permission is granted to the application to access the data that is associated with the heightened authentication protocol. The permission is time-limited. It is determined that the application is editing the data that is associated with the heightened authentication protocol. Permission for the application to access the data while the application is editing the data is temporarily extended.”

The patent application was filed on May 31, 2019 (16/428,830).

Replicable differential store data structure
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,132,350) developed by Tarta, Mihail Gavril, Sammamish, WA, Kakivaya, Gopal, and Subbarayalu, Preetha Lakshmi, Redmond, WA, for a “replicable differential store data structure.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “In various embodiments, methods and systems for optimizing database transactions based on replicable differential data store data structure are provided. A write operation request, having a key for a write operation on a replicable differential store data structure, is accessed. An intent write lock on a differential state and a write lock on the key are acquired. The differential state comprises a result set of currently committing transactions. A transaction instance, of the write operation, is generated for a write set, the transaction instance comprising a modification to the key. The write-set comprises an uncommitted set of writes for in-flight transactions. A determination is made that the write operation is committed. A result of the transaction instance is persisted when the write operation is committed. It is contemplated that the differential state and a consolidated state can be merged, the consolidated state comprises a result set of previously committed transactions.”

The patent application was filed on December 4, 2018 (16/209,771).

Storage isolation for containers
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,126,740) developed by Havewala, Sarosh C., Redmond, WA, and Allred, Christian Gregory, Snohomish, WA, for a “storage isolation for containers.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “An application running in a container is able to access files stored on disk via normal file system calls, but in a manner that remains isolated from applications and processes in other containers. In one aspect, a namespace virtualization component is coupled with a copy-on-write component. When an isolated application is accessing a file stored on disk in a read-only manner, the namespace virtualization component and copy-on-write component grant access to the file. But, if the application requests to modify the file, the copy-on-write component intercepts the I/O and effectively creates a copy of the file in a different storage location on disk. The namespace virtualization component is then responsible for hiding the true location of the copy of the file, via namespace mapping.”

The patent application was filed on June 20, 2017 (15/628,089).

Data replication in distributed storage
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,120,046) developed by Seela, Pradeep, Redmond, WA, Zhang, Pei, Sammamish, WA, Lou, Yongfu, Devaraju, Jegan, Varadarajan, Krishnan, Redmond, WA, Tsai, Yi-Fan, Bellevue, WA, Sah, Maneesh, Sammamish, WA, Lange, Kristopher T., Seattle, WA, and Mainali, Shane K., Duvall, WA, for a “data replication in a distributed storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Data is replicated between primary and secondary storage systems using a data pulling process or a log shipping process. If data is to be replicated through the log shipping process, a transaction and its associated data get stored in a transaction log in the secondary storage system. Subsequently, when the transaction gets executed, actual data gets persisted from the transaction log to a data log in the secondary storage system. If the data is to be replicated through the data pulling process, the transaction is stored in the transaction log. However, the associated data for the transaction is retrieved from the first primary storage system and stored directly in the data log in the secondary system.”

The patent application was filed on March 21, 2019 (16/360,862).

Configurable and proactive application diagnostics and recovery
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,119,894) developed by Bhosale, Santosh Vasant, Bothell, WA, Prasad, Manoj Ajith, Redmond, WA, Toews, Sparky, Seattle, WA, Qian, Will, Redmond, WA, Chen, Weizhu, Kirkland, WA, Raman, Ganapathy V., DattaGupta, Aritra, Redmond, WA, Arora, Aarohi, Nelson, Michael J., Seattle, WA, Johnson, Roger F., Lee, Woo Ram, Redmond, WA, Bazyliak, Vladyslav, Bellevue, WA, Mitra, Somak, Charlotte, NC, Wilhelm, Bryan, Wesley Chapel, NC, Reich, Benjamin, and Justice, Matthew, Charlotte, NC, for “system and method for configurable and proactive application diagnostics and recovery.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Methods for configurable and proactive application diagnostics and recovery are performed by systems and devices. A diagnostics manager determines diagnostics packages corresponding to problems described in client device diagnostics requests. Session identifiers are generated and returned with diagnostics identifiers to clients which then provide the session identifiers and diagnostics identifiers to a service manager for session initiation. Diagnostics packages are located, retrieved, and provided back to the client by the service manager that invokes a client-side engine to execute diagnostics packages. Results are provided to the diagnostics system which determines additional packages to be executed by the engine during the same diagnostics session. Further, device-specific tokens are acquired by client devices which execute local diagnostic packages and acquire remote diagnostic packages for execution in the same session. Additionally, diagnostics packages provide their own user interfaces, and local packages are automatically executed upon invocation of help applications.”

The patent application was filed on August 24, 2018 (16/111,751).

Runtime quantum-memory management
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,119,773) developed by Soeken, Mathias, Montreux, Switzerland, Roetteler, Martin Henri, Woodinville, WA, and Svore, Krysta Marie, Seattle, WA, for a “runtime quantum-memory management.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for performing a quantum-logic operation on a quantum computer. The method includes enacting classical pebbling on an initial computation graph G defining the quantum-logic operation, extracting a quantum circuit B based on a sequence of steps obtained from the classical pebbling, that sequence including at least one computation step and at least one measurement-based uncomputation step, executing the quantum circuit B on a qubit register of the quantum computer, recording at least one measurement result of the at least one measurement-based uncomputation step of the quantum circuit B as executed on the qubit register, constructing a clean-up computation graph G’ based on the at least one measurement result, enacting reversible pebbling on the clean-up computation graph G’, extracting a quantum circuit B’ based on a sequence of steps obtained from the reversible pebbling, that sequence including computation and uncomputation steps, and executing the quantum circuit B’ on the qubit register.”

The patent application was filed on April 9, 2020 (16/844,948).

Performing atomic store-and-invalidate operations in processor-based devices
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,119,770) developed by Speier, Thomas Philip, Wake Forest, NC, and Robinson, Eric Francis, Raleigh, NC, for “performing atomic store-and-invalidate operations in processor-based devices.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Performing atomic store-and-invalidate operations in processor-based devices is disclosed. In this regard, a processing element (PE) of one or more PEs of a processor-based device includes a store-and-invalidate logic circuit used by a memory access stage of an execution pipeline of the PE to perform an atomic store-and-invalidate operation. Upon receiving an indication to perform a store-and-invalidate operation (e.g., in response to a store-and-invalidate instruction execution) comprising a store address and store data, the memory access stage uses the store-and-invalidate logic circuit to write the store data to a memory location indicated by the store address, and to invalidate an instruction cache line corresponding to the store address in an instruction cache of the PE. The operations for storing data and invalidating instruction cache lines are performed as one atomic store-and-invalidate operation, such that the store-and-invalidate operation is considered successful only if both the store and invalidate operations are successful.”

The patent application was filed on July 26, 2019 (16/522,755).

Reliable hierarchical storage management with data synchronization
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,113,312) developed by Kalach, Ran, Bellevue, WA, Bishop, Spencer Alan, Kirkland, WA, Yuan, Fenghua, Bellevue, WA, Hasan, Kashif, Snoqualmie, WA, and Shay, Jason Daniel, Seattle, WA, for a “reliable hierarchical storage management with data synchronization.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A system hosts a file system representing a replica of file systems hosted on a plurality of nodes, each node storing data on a first storage medium. The system stores data on a second storage medium that is slower than the first storage medium. The system stores on the second storage medium a file received from one of the nodes when the file remains un-accessed by the nodes for a predetermined period of time. The first storage medium on the plurality of nodes stores a pointer to the file and not the data content of the file stored on the second storage medium. The system provides the file from the second storage medium to the first storage medium on one of the nodes while providing the plurality of nodes read and write access to the file stored on the second storage medium using the pointer on the first storage medium.”

The patent application was filed on June 29, 2017 (15/637,769).

Data preservation using memory aperture flush order
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,113,188) developed by Bulusu, Mallik, Bellevue, WA, Nguyen, Tom L., Auburn, WA, Ladkani, Neeraj, and Mysore Shantamurthy, Ravi, Bothell, WA, for a “data preservation using memory aperture flush order.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Combined operational steps and device characteristics help preserve data against integrity threats. Data is divided into critical data and non-critical data, based on criteria such as customer requirements, workload criticality, or virtual machine criticality. Data may be generated in a compute node for storage in a storage node, for example. Critical data is stored in a battery-backed memory aperture at physical addresses where it will be flushed ahead of the non-critical data due to a flush order imposed by or on the battery-backed memory, e.g., a bottom-up NVDIMM flush order. Redundant copies of the data, especially non-critical data) may also be kept in case it does not get flushed in time. Battery-backed memory apertures are sized and located according to their battery’s characteristics, and may be relocated or resized as conditions change. Flush defragging is performed to optimize use of the aperture, especially within the portion that holds critical data.”

The patent application was filed on August 21, 2019 (16/546,337).

Background migration of virtual storage
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,112,975) developed by Green, Dustin L., Redmond, WA, Oshins, Jacob K., Seattle, WA, and Reuther, Lars, Kirkland, WA, for a “background migration of virtual storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Described is a technology by which a virtual hard disk is migrated from a source storage location to a target storage location without needing any shared physical storage, in which a machine may continue to use the virtual hard disk during migration. This facilitates use the virtual hard disk in conjunction with live-migrating a virtual machine. Virtual hard disk migration may occur fully before or after the virtual machine is migrated to the target host, or partially before and partially after virtual machine migration. Background copying, sending of write-through data, and/or servicing read requests may be used in the migration. Also described is throttling data writes and/or data communication to manage the migration of the virtual hard disk.”

The patent application was filed on June 27, 2018 (16/020,820).

IoT device update failure recovery
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,106,537) developed by Olinsky, Reuben R., Seattle, WA, and Nightingale, Edmund B., Bellevue, WA, for an “IoT device update failure recovery.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The disclosed technology is generally directed to IoT device update failure recovery. In one example of the technology, after writing an updated release to memory, a determination is made whether the updated release is valid. The updated release includes a plurality of image binaries. If the updated release is determined to be valid, the updated release is made the current release. A determination is made as to whether the current release is stable. Upon determining that the current release is unstable, an auto-rollback is performed. Performing the auto-rollback includes, via at least one processor, automatically: obtaining an uncompressed backup of a previous release, making the uncompressed backup of the previous release the current release, and executing the uncompressed backup.”

The patent application was filed on June 14, 2019 (16/441,849).

Data tokenization maintaining data integrity
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,100,087) developed by Gupta, Shalini, Kumar, Dharmesh, Bregler, Elke, Foucht, Rick, Saraogi, Navneet, Huet, Frederic, Yost, Ralph, and Kanumuri, Gangaram, Redmond, WA, for a “data tokenization system maintaining data integrity.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A system to tokenize values may include a processing unit, a storage device comprising instructions, which when executed by the processing unit, configure the processing unit to: receive a data item with an original value from a first storage system, store the data item in a staging table, transform the original value of the data item in the staging table to a changed value based on a stored rule, store a mapping between the original value and the changed value in a library table, and transmit the library table to a second storage system configured to update a database table at the second storage system based on the library table.”

The patent application was filed on April 26, 2019 (16/396,144).

Persistent storage segment caching for data recovery
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (11,099,948) developed by Diaconu, Cristian, Kirkland, WA, Wakade, Vikram, and Prakash, Naveen, Sammamish, WA, for a “persistent storage segment caching for data recovery.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Caching storage segments (e.g., pages) loaded from a remote storage such that, during recovery, the cached loaded storage segments may be at least partially recovered without reloading the storage segments from the remote storage. During normal operation of a computing system, storage segments are loaded from remote storage into local memory of a computing system. At some point, either due to eviction of the storage segment due to aging out of the storage segment, or due to writing of the storage segment, it is determined to write at least some of the loaded storage segments into local persistent storage. In conjunction with this, the corresponding storage segment is written to a respective storage address of the local persistent storage. Also, a correlation between an identifier of the storage segment and the respective address in the persistent storage is recorded in a persistent data structure.”

The patent application was filed on September 21, 2018 (16/138,175).