BellSouth Intellectual Property Assigned Patent

ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 12 -- BellSouth Intellectual Property, Wilmington, Del., has been assigned a patent (7,941,520) developed by 20 co-inventors for a "system and method for tracking telephone network capacity and equipment." The co-inventors are Joshua W. Kite, Atlanta, Ellen W. Brown, Pensacola, Fla., Patricia Rankins Askew, Huntersville, N.C., Rick Quinn, Davie, Fla., Mark K. Zickefoose, Orlando, Fla., James P. Womack, Grand Coteau, La., Greg Cowart, Woodstock, Ga., William L. Pfister, Winchester, Ky., Ted J. Carlson, Nashville, Tenn., Gary P. Ray, Trussville, Ala., Joseph V. Lillie, Lafayette, La., Lawrence C. Bratton, Monroe, La., Carolyn F. Champion, Snellville, Ga., John Kenneth Breard, Monroe, La., Robert E. Dabney, Irmo, S.C., Lynn Bainbridge Horton, Cumming, Ga., Greg Lake, Kennesaw, Ga., Watson Dorn Jr., Lilburn, Ga., Elias Rodriguez, Snellville, Ga., and Russell T. Smith, Snellville, Ga.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A system and method of managing telephone network facilities. A telephone network facilities database, such as LEIS, is accessed and selected information, including wire center location, equipment and slot information stored therein, is extracted and re-stored in a relational database. Additional fields in the relational database are populated based on the information extracted from the telephone network facilities database. The additional fields represent working ADSL and T1 facilities, ADSL and T1 capacity, and ADSL and T1 availability. A graphical user interface is provided that displays several views of the data in the relational database. Color coding aspects of the graphical user interface indicates capacity levels."

The patent application was filed on Sept. 28, 2001 (09/964,451). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=7,941,520&OS=7,941,520&RS=7,941,520

Written by Satyaban Rath; edited by Hemanta Panigrahi.