The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 14, 1995
Filed:
Apr. 06, 1992
Applicant:
Inventors:
Terry M Topka, Scotia, NY (US);
Paul C Brown, Schenectady, NY (US);
Assignee:
General Electric Company, Schenectady, NY (US);
Attorneys:
Primary Examiner:
Assistant Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G06F / ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
395600 ; 364D / ; 3642455 ; 3642821 ; 395425 ;
Abstract
The present invention solves both the dangling pointer problem and the garbage collection problem in software systems. Safe object pointers are divided into strong and weak pointers. Strong pointers point to an object unless they are explicitly assigned a new value, set to null, or destroyed. Weak pointers point to an object as long as the object has not been destroyed. If an object is destroyed, the weak pointer effectively becomes null, thus allowing the breaking up of cycles of references in a computer memory.