Mark Daniel Stephens

US Patent:

6498661, Dec 24, 2002

Filed:

Mar 26, 1999

Appl. No.:

09/277056

Inventors:

Craig Duray Brossman - Boulder CO
Arianne Therese Hinds - Boulder CO
Nenad Rijavec - Longmont CO
Mikel J. Stanich - Longmont CO
Mark Andrew Stephens - Westminster CO
Raymond Glenn Wardell - Boulder CO

Assignee:

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

International Classification:

G06K 1502

US Classification:

358 314, 358 323, 358406, 358468, 358434

Abstract:

A method, apparatus, article of manufacture for transmitting data to a facsimile presentation device is disclosed. In one embodiment of the invention, the method comprises the steps of receiving a presentation job comprising input data associable with at least one input grayscale value, retrieving at least one of a plurality of threshold matrices, each threshold matrix selected to control a grayscale rendering characteristic of the facsimile presentation device associated with the threshold matrix, applying the grayscale values to the retrieved threshold matrix to rasterize the input data, and transmitting the rasterized input data to the facsimile presentation device. This invention can be practiced in several embodiments, and permits the user to select the threshold matrix according to the presentation device and/or a selected presentation quality. In another embodiment of the invention, the apparatus comprises a means for receiving a presentation job having input data associable with at least one input grayscale value, means for retrieving at least one of a plurality of threshold matrices, each threshold matrix selected to control a grayscale rendering characteristic of the facsimile presentation device associated with the threshold matrix, means for applying the grayscale values to the retrieved threshold matrix to rasterize the input data, and means for transmitting the rasterized input data to the facsimile presentation device.

US Patent:

6535295, Mar 18, 2003

Filed:

Aug 24, 1998

Appl. No.:

09/139043

Inventors:

Craig Duray Brossman - Boulder CO
Arianne Therese Hinds - Boulder CO
Nenad Rijavec - Longmont CO
Mark Andrew Stephens - Westminster CO
Raymond Glenn Wardell - Boulder CO

Assignee:

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

International Classification:

G06F 312

US Classification:

358 115, 710 8

Abstract:

A flexible and extensible virtual printer architecture is provided. According to one aspect of the present invention final status associated with a presentation job (e. g. , a fax job or a print job) is made available to an output server. One or more host processing threads or processes are spawned for each new presentation job received by the output server. Then, the presentation job is submitted to a presentation device for which the presentation job is destined by way of an instance of a wrapper process that is capable of communicating bi-directionally with the presentation device. After submitting the presentation job, a host job status thread or process waits for status pertaining to the presentation job. Ultimately, a final status associated with the presentation job is received by the wrapper process and the wrapper process reports the final status to the host job status thread or process. According to another aspect of the present invention, job and device status may be reported asynchronously.

US Patent:

6538773, Mar 25, 2003

Filed:

Mar 26, 1999

Appl. No.:

09/282024

Inventors:

Craig Duray Brossman - Boulder CO
Arianne Therese Hinds - Boulder CO
Nenad Rijavec - Longmont CO
Mikel J. Stanich - Longmont CO
Mark Andrew Stephens - Westminster CO
Raymond Glenn Wardell - Boulder CO

Assignee:

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NJ

International Classification:

H04N 146

US Classification:

358 316, 358 113

Abstract:

A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture, for transmitting data to facsimile presentation device is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of receiving a presentation job comprising input data associable with at least one input grayscale value, retrieving one of a plurality of stored transforms, each transform for modifying grayscale commands to control a grayscale rendering characteristic of a presentation device associated with the transform, applying the transform to the input grayscale value to produce calibrated grayscale values, and transmitting data representing the calibrated grayscale value to the facsimile presentation device. In one embodiment of the present invention, the step of transmitting the rasterized input data to the presentation device comprises the steps of reducing the rasterized input data to an intermediate format being one of a number of widely supported formats, generating device-specific data and device-specific control information for the presentation device based on the intermediate format and control information associated with the input data, and transmitting the device-specific data and the device-specific control information to the presentation device. This invention can be practiced in several embodiments, and permits the user to select the transform according to the presentation device and/or a selected presentation quality.

US Patent:

6542252, Apr 1, 2003

Filed:

Jun 13, 2001

Appl. No.:

09/880979

Inventors:

Craig Duray Brossman - Boulder CO
Arianne Therese Hinds - Boulder CO
Nenad Rijavec - Longmont CO
Mark Andrew Stephens - Westminster CO
Raymond Glenn Wardell - Boulder CO

Assignee:

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

International Classification:

G06F 1300

US Classification:

358 113, 358 115

Abstract:

A flexible and extensible virtual printer architecture is provided. According to one embodiment, a mechanism is provided for driving multiple heterogeneous presentation devices. A presentation job is received on behalf of a presentation device, the presentation job includes a data stream which contains source data in the form of text, image, graphics, and/or other embedded objects. The source data is then reduced to an intermediate format. Based upon the intermediate format and control information associated with the data stream, device-specific data and device-specific control information are generated for the presentation device. Finally, the presentation device is driven by providing the device-specific data and device-specific control information to the presentation device.

US Patent:

6678699, Jan 13, 2004

Filed:

Oct 9, 2001

Appl. No.:

09/973353

Inventors:

Mark Andrew Stephens - Northglenn CO
Debra Kathleen Wagner - Louisville KY

Assignee:

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

International Classification:

G06F 1730

US Classification:

7071041

Abstract:

A displayable digital document such as a. PDF document is indexed by displaying it on a viewer. A database field is provided in a relational database. A user selects a field in the digital document for indexing using a pointing device and defines a bounding rectangle for this field. Offsets are recorded and compared to other bounding rectangles. Comparisons are recorded in a parameter file for each document. An indexer is run to insert the offsets and other data into the relational database and also store the digital image in the relational database. A query is made of the database and part or all of the digital document is displayed based on the results of the query.

US Patent:

7095523, Aug 22, 2006

Filed:

Dec 12, 2002

Appl. No.:

10/318717

Inventors:

Craig Duray Brossman - Boulder CO, US
Nenad Rijavec - Longmont CO, US
Mark Andrew Stephens - Westminster CO, US
Raymond Glenn Wardell - Boulder CO, US

Assignee:

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

International Classification:

G06F 3/12
G06K 15/00

US Classification:

358 115, 358 114

Abstract:

A flexible and extensible virtual printer architecture is provided. According to one aspect of the present invention final status associated with a presentation job (e. g. , a fax job or a print job) is made available to an output server. One or more host processing threads or processes are spawned for each new presentation job received by the output server. Then, the presentation job is submitted to a presentation device for which the presentation job is destined by way of an instance of a wrapper process that is capable of communicating bi-directionally with the presentation device. After submitting the presentation job, a host job status thread or process waits for status pertaining to the presentation job. Ultimately, a final status associated with the presentation job is received by the wrapper process and the wrapper process reports the final status to the host job status thread or process. According to another aspect of the present invention, job and device status may be reported asynchronously.

US Patent:

7206777, Apr 17, 2007

Filed:

Oct 29, 2003

Appl. No.:

10/696694

Inventors:

Martin Pepper - Warwick, GB
Mark A. Stephens - Northglenn CO, US

Assignee:

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

International Classification:

G06F 7/00

US Classification:

707 3, 707 5

Abstract:

A method, system, and program product for the archiving of a markup language document. The method includes the steps of: identifying at least one referenced resource in the document; determining if the at least one identified referenced resource is stored in a storage device; and in response to an unsuccessful determining step, storing the at least one identified referenced resource in the storage device.

US Patent:

57874611, Jul 28, 1998

Filed:

Aug 12, 1996

Appl. No.:

8/695405

Inventors:

Mark Stephens - Burlingame CA

Assignee:

Roadrunner Technology, Inc. - San Mateo CA

International Classification:

G06F 1300

US Classification:

711113

Abstract:

A high speed compact disk read only memory drive. In one embodiment, a local storage device containing an optical disk drive, a fast local storage device and RAM are all coupled to controller circuitry. The controller circuitry is coupled to interface circuitry which may be coupled to the bus of an ordinary computer system. The data storage device behaves and responds similar to an ordinary CD-ROM, DVD or hard disk drive to the coupled computer system. The RAM of the disclosed data storage device is configured to store directory information and the local storage device is configured to store executable files from the optical disk drive and cache non-executable data. Non-executable data is replaced in the local storage device in accordance with a least recently used algorithm. Information requests from the coupled computer system are read directly from the RAM or the local storage device as requested with significant increases in read access time and data transfer rates.