Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Adam Sapek

Amer A Hassan

Thomas W Kuehnel

Hui Shen

Lloyd Alfred Moore

Deyun Wu

Anh Phuong Tran

Christian F Huitema

Albert Liu

Gary Jason Waliczek

Poonam Ganesh Hattangady

Upender Sandadi

Adam R Dyba

Christopher Todd Guillory

M Omar Maabreh

John Mark Miller

Hugh A Teegan

Thiruvengadam Venketesan

Keith C Bentley

Jane Van-nha Ly

Kishore Kumar Prakash

Hugh Teegan

Anh P Tran

A communication system in which an access point and one or more devices communicating through the access point adaptively apply Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA). The access point may assign orthogonal subcarriers to devices as in conventional OFDMA, but the access point senses activity on the subcarriers and selects subcarriers without activity for assignment. In an alternative approach, a device that is configured for OFDMA communication may receive a channel assignment from a device that does not support OFDMA. The OFDMA-capable device may use only a portion of the subcarriers in the assigned channel, which may be communicated to the non-OFDMA device. During the non-OFDMA device may then ignore unused subcarriers in error detection and correction to avoid incorrectly classifying communications as erroneous. Information about OFDMA capabilities, subcarrier assignments and subcarriers in use may be communicated as information elements in network control communications, such as beacons and probe messages.

Orthogonal frequency division multiple access with carrier sense

Configurable selection of communication interfaces on a multi-homed computing device. Application programs executing on the computing device define preferences, policies, and/or restrictions for use of the various communication interfaces. Responsive to a request from one of the application programs to communicate with a destination computing device, a list of the communication interfaces is created based on the preferences defined by the application program. The application program iteratively attempts to establish a connection to the destination computing device using each of the communication interfaces on the list.

Communication interface selection on multi-homed devices

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access with carrier sense

A computer with a software defined radio that can be configured based on a wireless technology specification. The computer may negotiate with a second computer that also includes a software defined radio to define a set of wireless technology specifications and trigger events indicating when each of the wireless technology specifications is to be used. As the computers communicate, if a trigger event occurs, both computers may reconfigure their software defined radios using a different specification in the set. By appropriately defining the wireless technology specifications in the set and the trigger events, the computers can operate with configurations that allow communication despite events that might otherwise disrupt communication between the computers.

Computer radio with pre-defined configuration set

An object set may be redundantly stored by a set of computers, each configured to store a local representation of corresponding objects. When a computer changes the object set (e.g., by adding or altering an object), the updated object may be synchronized across the computers by iteratively forming and using an ad hoc swarm network from the neighbors of a node storing the updated object. This swarm network may operate cooperatively, where each node distributes object chunks to other nodes as quickly as possible, and may disregard concepts of competitive swarm networks such as fairness and cheating avoidance, which may not apply to cooperative swarming and might otherwise slow the propagation of the object. An alternative 'ask' technique may be included to identify and recover missed object updates, and a computing environment host may be included as an authoritative object source and/or as an object store of last resort.

Swarm-based synchronization over a network of object stores

Within a network-based discussion environment, a moderation mechanism is implemented to encourage posts of high relevancy. The moderation mechanism is configurable so as to support distributed access control. In one case, the moderation mechanism is configured to support an allocation of a limited number of responses to a user based on the number of new threads the user has started.

Automated moderation of discussion  lists

Combining network connection maintenance operations that use a resource to extend battery life. Each of the network connections has a timer and a defined tolerance for early connection maintenance. After receiving notification of an event, the network connections are accessed to identify the connections for which a maintenance operation may be performed early based on the timer and the tolerance. In an embodiment, the maintenance operation includes sending a transmission control protocol (TCP) keep-alive packet on the connection.

Aggregating connection maintenance to optimize resource consumption

A multi-hop mesh network may be connected to a Local Area Network (LAN) using a MAC Bridge. One or more nodes on the mesh network may be configured as a bridge node that employs a MAC bridge. Packets that travel between stations on the LAN to nodes on the mesh network flow through one of the bridge nodes on the mesh network. The bridge nodes do not receive all the packets on mesh network, but they receive the packets that are to be transmitted across the MAC bridge. As the bridge nodes learn of new stations on the LAN they advertise routes to the other nodes within the mesh network specifying how to reach those stations. This enables MAC Bridge functionality between wireless mesh networks and 802 LANs.

Connecting multi-hop mesh networks using MAC bridge

Coalescing schedules that use a resource to extend battery life. Each of the schedules is defined to execute at a recurrent activation time within a defined tolerance. After receiving notification of an event, the schedules are accessed to identify the schedules that may be executed early based on their activation time and tolerance. The identified schedules are aggregated for execution.

Aggregating recurrent schedules to optimize resource consumption

Managing recurrent schedules based on events and conditions. Schedules from a plurality of applications are identified based on an activation time for the schedules and a determination of whether or not conditions defined for the schedules are met. The identified schedules are activated by performing actions associated with each of the identified schedules. In an embodiment, the schedules are grouped based on functionality and prioritized to avoid conflicts within each group.

Managing event-based conditional recurrent schedules

A self-adaptive algorithm to enforce fairness executes on nodes in an ad hoc wireless network. Each node is configured to measure or estimate the utilization of the RF channel in its neighborhood and then share this information with its neighboring nodes. In this way, the nodes learn about the traffic flows within their neighborhood and may determine the competing flows. Based on the information about the competing flows, each node then determines the fair share of RF channel usage. The fair share may be computed by dividing the total time that all competing flows use the RF channel by the number of competing flows. Traffic flows using more than the computed fair share of channel access are slowed down to allow more access to the RF channel for flows that are not getting their fair share.

Growing community of inventors

Redmond, WA, United States of America

Adam Sapek