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:
Aug. 19, 2008
Filed:
Sep. 30, 2004
Andrew J. Becker, Bellevue, WA (US);
Charles D. Ellis, Seattle, WA (US);
Joseph M. Chirilov, Kirkland, WA (US);
Juha P. Niemisto, Mercer Island, WA (US);
Matthew J. Androski, Bellevue, WA (US);
Robert C. Collie, Kirkland, WA (US);
Robert G. Hawking, Seattle, WA (US);
Simon Peyton-jones, Cambridge, GB;
Weide Zhong, Sammamish, WA (US);
Andrew J. Becker, Bellevue, WA (US);
Charles D. Ellis, Seattle, WA (US);
Joseph M. Chirilov, Kirkland, WA (US);
Juha P. Niemisto, Mercer Island, WA (US);
Matthew J. Androski, Bellevue, WA (US);
Robert C. Collie, Kirkland, WA (US);
Robert G. Hawking, Seattle, WA (US);
Simon Peyton-Jones, Cambridge, GB;
Weide Zhong, Sammamish, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
The present invention relates to a new type of structured name within a spreadsheet program that allows users to refer to tables, columns of data within tables, headers of tables, totals from tables, PivotTables®, and portions of PivotTable® data by the data's headers. Embodiments of the present invention comprise a method for referring to a set of data that comprises receiving one or more semantic designations, wherein the one or more semantic designations name a set of context information that describes one or more items of data in a data structure, automatically creating a structural reference, and associating the context information with the structural reference. Other embodiments of the present invention relate to an interaction with a user interface for displaying on a display device a structural reference to data in a spreadsheet that comprises receiving one or more semantic designations from the user that refer to one or more elements of the data structure, creating a structural reference to the elements of the data structure, and displaying the structural reference as a collection of the one or more semantic designations.