New patents are issued by the USPTO on Tuesdays. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital fingerprinting. Assigned to AT&T, the first patent addresses techniques for sharing timed fingerprint location information. Assigned to SonicWall, the second patent addresses techniques for image based spam blocking.
10,206,113, "Sharing timed fingerprint location information," assigned to AT&T Mobility II LLC.
Abstract
Sharing timed fingerprint location information is disclosed. In an aspect, timed fingerprint location information can be associated with a location of a user equipment. This timed fingerprint location information can be shared with other devices. As such, with proper analysis, these other devices can employ the shared timed fingerprint location information to determine their location. In an aspect, the other devices can determine that they are located at the same location as the user equipment. However, a level of error can be inherent in the location determined from shared timed fingerprint location information. In some embodiments, this error can be compensated for.
10,204,157, "Image based spam blocking," assigned to SonicWall, Inc.
Abstract
A fingerprint of an image identified within a received message is generated following analysis of the message. A spam detection engine identifies an image within a message and converts the image into a grey scale image. The spam detection engine analyzes the grey scale image and assigns a score. A fingerprint of the grey scale image is generated based on the score. The fingerprint may also be based on other factors such as the message sender's status (e.g. blacklisted or whitelisted) and other scores and reports generated by the spam detection engine. The fingerprint is then used to filter future incoming messages.
