Islanders awarded U.S. patents

Three Mercer Island inventors were among several from Washington state awarded patents for their inventions through the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. They are Richard L. Negrin, Martin A. Cheever and Mitchell O. Peterson.

Three Mercer Island inventors were among several from Washington state awarded patents for their inventions through the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. They are Richard L. Negrin, Martin A. Cheever and Mitchell O. Peterson.

Negrin and two other Washington inventors, Jeffrey T. Pearce of Sammamish, Wash., Nigel R. Ellis of Redmond, Wash., have developed a computer file path compact representation system.

According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: “The invention provides a system and/or a method that facilitates providing a compact representation of a file path associated to a file storage system. A path component can provide seamless integration and/or transition between the file path associated to the file storage system. The compact representation can facilitate at least one of storing, renaming and searching.”

The inventors were issued U.S. Patent No. 7,383,274 on June 3. The patent has been assigned to Microsoft Corp., Redmond.

Cheever and Alexander Gaiger of Vienna, Austria, have developed a method for enhancing or inducing an immune response to facilitate the treatment of cancerous diseases.

According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: “The method identifies and utilizes chemical and cellular compositions and methods for the therapy of malignant diseases, such as leukemia and cancer. Such compositions may be used, for example, for the prevention and treatment of metastatic diseases.”

The inventors were issued U.S. Patent No. 7,368,119 on May 6. The patent has been assigned to the Corixa Corp., Hamilton, Mont., and the University of Washington.

Peterson and Brian D. Silverman of Bellevue, Wash., have developed a computer-implemented internal area access communication system. According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: “The system is used for communication between internal applications and external applications originating external communication. Included are modules to convert noncompliant external formats, and a controller to route the external and the internal communications.”

The inventors were issued U.S. Patent No. 7,380,024 on May 27. The patent has been assigned to Attachmate Corp., Bellevue.