When an invention is judged patentable but it doesn't fit the "needs of the business" IBM publishes the disclosure in the IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin to put it in the public domain. This way, in theory, if IBM was wrong, no patent which blocks IBM's use of the invention can be issued. In practice the patent system is so chaotic that TDB inventions are often patented by other "inventors."

Technical Disclosure Bulletin Articles

TITLE Digit Recognition
INVENTOR Comerford, LD Lucas, BD Moskowitz, PA
PUBNAME RD v41 n414 10-98 article 41453
DISCLOSURE YO8980344
SUMMARY Disclosed here is a system for increasing the accuracy of automated voice recognition for digits.

TITLE Using the Workstation for Real Time Voice Communication
INVENTOR Comerford, L Davies, K Srinivasan, S
PUBNAME TDB v36 n10 10-93 p287-288
DISCLOSURE YO8920769
SUMMARY A method is described for inter-workstation voice communication which allows telephone like conversation between one or more pairs or sets of people but overcomes the limitations of the telephone by using a graphical user interface.

TITLE Braille Terminal Window
INVENTOR Comerford, L Levy, L
PUBNAME TDB v36 n9B 09-93 p503-504
DISCLOSURE YO8840277
SUMMARY Apparatus is described, for making a computer terminal screen contents available to a blind person.

TITLE Pen Mounted Microphone for Pen and Tablet Computers.
INVENTOR Comerford, L Lucassen, JM
PUBNAME TDB n1a 06-92 p49-51
DISCLOSURE YO8911121
SUMMARY The invention disclosed here enables the acquisition of high-quality speech from the user of a pen-and-tablet system, without the use of a headset-mounted microphone.

TITLE Behavioral Camera Framing Cone.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD Kelley, JF
PUBNAME TDB n11 04-92 p418-421
DISCLOSURE YO8910353
SUMMARY Disclosed is a device that, when affixed to the front of a video or still camera, enables the person at whom the camera is pointing to align himself or herself (or align the camera) so that he or she is framed correctly (i.e., centered in the viewfinder).

TITLE Conductive Polymer Composites: Conductive Pen for Use in Electronic Notebook Computers. September 1991.
INVENTOR Afzali-Ardakani, A Angelopoulos, M Bourgault, VA Comerford, LD Shaw, JM
PUBNAME Research Disclosure n329 09-91
DISCLOSURE YO8910143
SUMMARY Disclosed is a material and method of manufacture of polymer-carbon composites which could be molded and machined to a pen tip for use in electronic notebooks.

TITLE Automatic Stylus Identification System.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD Schkolnick, M
PUBNAME TDB n2 07-91 p406-409
DISCLOSURE YO8890604
SUMMARY This mechanism is an enhancement of existing stylus technology to provide a data stream which is unique for each stylus.

TITLE Artificial Immunity for Personal Computers.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD Strohm, WD
PUBNAME TDB n2 07-91 p150-154
DISCLOSURE YO8890760
SUMMARY This invention describes an intelligent hardware coprocessor which emulates an immune system in the computing system's architecture.

TITLE Thermal Braille Transducer
INVENTOR Casey, D Comerford, LD Linnell, D Nolan, TJ Walsh, T
PUBNAME TDB 06-89 p.88-89
DISCLOSURE YO8860849
SUMMARY Disclosed is a method by which braille characters can be produced for use in a real time output device.

TITLE Partitioning Function and Packaging of Integrated Circuits for Physical Security of Data
INVENTOR Comerford, L
PUBNAME TDB 06-89 p.46-49
DISCLOSURE YO8870215
SUMMARY Disclosed is a method for structuring information-handling integrated circuits to increase their resistance to physical probing for the purpose of illicit examination of their stored data.

TITLE Tap-Resistant Optical Fiber
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 05-88 p.34-37
DISCLOSURE YO8870098
SUMMARY A technique is described whereby optical fibers, transmitters and receivers, as used in communication systems, are structured in such a way so as to provide resistance to tapping.

TITLE Remote Security Anchoring of Remote User Identification
INVENTOR Chandra, A Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 05-88 p.30-33
DISCLOSURE YO8870143
SUMMARY A technique is described whereby access to computer services is provided additional security between remote secured processors and local host processors.

TITLE LOCATION IDENTIFICATION to PREVENT UNAUTHORIZED, USER-IMPLEMENTED, DIAL-IN PORTS to COMPUTERS
INVENTOR Cina, VJ Comerford, LD White, SR
PUBNAME TDB 08-87 p.1047-1050
DISCLOSURE YO8850416
SUMMARY This article discloses a means to prevent the utilization of unauthorized dial-in ports to a computer.

TITLE Seeing Eye Mouse
INVENTOR Comerford, L
PUBNAME TDB 08-85 p.1343-1344
DISCLOSURE YO8840276
SUMMARY Apparatus is described for making computer screen terminal contents available to blind persons.

TITLE Magneto-Mechanical "Mouse" (Fast Cursor Positioning Device)
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 12-84 p.3783-3784
DISCLOSURE YO8830896
SUMMARY A "mouse" is a fast cursor positioning device which has been shown, in human factors studies, to offer advantages over other fast cursor positioning devices, such as track balls and joy sticks.

TITLE Method for Transferring Copyprotected Software Without Destroying Copy-Protection
INVENTOR Comerford, L White, SR
PUBNAME TDB 10-84 p.3013
DISCLOSURE YO8830035
SUMMARY A software product which is copy-protected by means of a software key is transferred from a first medium, such as a floppy disk, to a second medium, such as a hard disk, which also has a key associated with it.

TITLE Small-Outline Laser Diode Sub-Module
INVENTOR Brady, MJ Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 07-84 p.1090-1091
DISCLOSURE YO8830204
SUMMARY This article discloses a small-outline laser diode sub-module which may be incorporated in present integrated circuit packages.

TITLE Etched Silicon Integrated Circuit Heat Sink
INVENTOR Brady, MJ Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 06-84 p.627
DISCLOSURE YO8830518
SUMMARY The disclosed heat sink for ICs (integrated circuits) is fabricated from single crystal silicon and can be batch processed and directly attached to the substrate side of a flip-chip silicon IC.

TITLE Self-Aligned Optical Fiber/Laser Structure
INVENTOR Brady, MJ Comerford, LD Ewen, JF
PUBNAME TDB 05-84 p.5993-5995
DISCLOSURE YO8820174
SUMMARY A single lithography fabrication process may be used to integrate the fabrication of a semiconductor laser and a V-groove alignment structure supporting the laser.

TITLE Provision of Hardware Keys on Floppy Diskettes for Copy Protection
INVENTOR Comerford, LD White, SR
PUBNAME TDB 03-84 p.5465-5467
DISCLOSURE YO8830001
SUMMARY To provide copy protection for software written on floppy diskettes, hardware keys represented by variably spaced code holes are formed in the diskettes, each set of such holes having a pattern of relative angular spacings which is unique to its diskette.

TITLE Component for Optimization of Cooling Air Flow
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 03-84 p.5432-5433
DISCLOSURE YO8820598
SUMMARY In so-called "card-on-board" arrangements of circuit cards, a component can be used to optimize cooling air flow on each card and for the system as a whole.

TITLE Cast Connector for Fiber Optic Modules. April 1983.
INVENTOR Brady, MJ Burstell, CB Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 04-83 p5525-5527
DISCLOSURE YO8810709
SUMMARY A miniature optical fiber connector is described for providing fiber-optic connection through a sidewall of an integrated circuit module.

TITLE Silicon Optical Fiber Splice. April 1983.
INVENTOR Brady, MJ Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 04-83 p5518-5519
DISCLOSURE YO8810445
SUMMARY A splice connector for optical fibers is described. The connector body is formed by joining silicon slabs having aligned anisotropicaIly etched apertures forming a sleeve which self-aligns the fibers as they are fully inserted. The sleeve is filled with an index matching thermoplastic which holds the fibers in position upon cooling.

TITLE Silicon Leadless Insertion Device for Laser Diode Alignment and Contacting. April 1983.
INVENTOR Brady, MJ Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 04-83 p5510-5512
DISCLOSURE YO8810703
SUMMARY A packaging method is described for an injection laser wherein the laser die is entrapped (sandwiched) between two opposing preformed (crystallographically etched silicon) elements which simultaneously contact and are soldered to both sides of the die and to each other In one embodiment the laser die is also automatically and simultaneously aligned with one of the preformed elements for automatic alignment of the laser chip with other optical elements. References (1) U.S. Patent 4,079,404. (2) L. D. Comerford, "Flip-Chip Bonding by Solder Filling of Capillaries," IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin 23, 2146-2147 (October 1980).

TITLE Optical Source Masterslice. August 1982.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD Crow, JD
PUBNAME TDB 08-82 p1173-1174
DISCLOSURE YO8800506
SUMMARY An array of optical gain regions on a laser wafer may be interconnected at the last stage of processing by custom metallizations to produce any one of several different laser or LED (light-emitting diode) types.

TITLE Capillary Masking of Topologically Etched Silicon Substrates. April 1982.
INVENTOR Brady, MJ Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 04-82 p5810-5811
DISCLOSURE YO8800453
SUMMARY A technique is described for electrically isolating metallization in a a groove. Reference (*) L.D. Comerford, "Flip-Chip Bonding by Solder Filling of Capillaries," IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin 23 , 2146-2147 (October 1980).

TITLE Alignment Detector on Silicon Optical Bench. January 1982.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD Potemski, RM
PUBNAME TDB 01-82 p4067-4068
DISCLOSURE YO8800563
SUMMARY Proper alignment of an injection laser die with respect to a silicon optical bench subcarrier may be automatically detected by providing two contacts on the silicon optical bench which both make simultaneous electrical contact to the laser metal pad if, and only if, the laser die is properly positioned.

TITLE Silicon Pin Array Connector for Josephson Package. January 1982.
INVENTOR Brady, MJ Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 01-82 P4063-4064
DISCLOSURE YO8800503
SUMMARY Direct electrical interconnections may be made to silicon boards via microminiature alignment and connection pins which are carried within and registered by etched silicon V-grooves.

TITLE Silicon Optical Bench for Reproducible Feedback Path. September 1981.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 09-81 p1984-1985
DISCLOSURE YO8800162
SUMMARY Fibers are positioned symmetrically with respect to the cleaved facets of a semiconductor laser so that one of the fibers can provide a reference signal which accurately tracks the signal coupled into the other fiber for transmission.

TITLE Flip Chip Bonded Ground Plane for Ceramic Chip Carriers. September
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 09-81 p1978-1979
DISCLOSURE YO8800127
SUMMARY A ground plane may be attached to a ceramic chip carrier in close proximity to conducting lines to improve high frequency isolation between conducting lines.

TITLE Grating Coupling Of Light Generated by Forced Nonlinear Optical Processes. April 1981.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD Lynch, RT
PUBNAME TDB 04-81 p5101-5102
DISCLOSURE YO8800076
SUMMARY A grating may be used to extract second harmonic light from a nonlinear crystal even when the crystal is lossy at the second harmonic frequency.

TITLE Total Internal Reflection End Mirror Laser Diode. October 1980.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 10-80 p2164-2165
DISCLOSURE YO8780571
SUMMARY The drive stripe of a solid-state laser is curved and either bifurcated or folded so that at the back laser facet, the angle of incidence is sufficiently low to obtain total internal reflection. As a result, no optical power is lost from the back facet.

TITLE Electrostatic Discharge Detector. October 1980.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 10-80 p2162-2163
DISCLOSURE YO8790497
SUMMARY If a dummy receiver is placed in the same environment as the real receiver and the response of the dummy receiver to a test signal is monitored, electrostatic discharges and other environmental noise may be detected which could invalidate data being received by the real receiver.

TITLE Flip-Chip Bonding by Solder Filling of Capillaries. October 1980.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 10-80 p2146-2147
DISCLOSURE YO87900099
SUMMARY Smooth walled metal-coated channels (up to several mils wide) may be preferentially filled with a solder, such as indium, in order to bond a chip to a substrate. The solder-filled channels may simultaneously serve as electrical leads.

TITLE Etched Silicon Structure For Aligning A Photodiode And Optical Fiber. December 1979.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 12-79 p2935-2936
DISCLOSURE YO8780577
SUMMARY An etched silicon substrate may be used to align an optical fiber to a photodiode in a geometry which enhances optical coupling.

TITLE Optical Fiber Coupler. December 1979.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD Rogers, DL
PUBNAME TDB 12-79 p2933-2934
DISCLOSURE YO8780576
SUMMARY Aligned Vee grooves etched to different depths in a silicon substrate may be used to efficiently butt couple a plurality of smaller optical fibers into a larger optical fiber.

TITLE Resonant Fiber Optic Scanner. December 1979.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 12-79 p2932
DISCLOSURE YO8780525
SUMMARY A cantilevered optical fiber driven into mechanical resonance may be used for optical scanning.

TITLE One-Shot Evaporant Thickness Gauge Controller. November 1979.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 11-79 p2509
DISCLOSURE YO8780641
SUMMARY An insulator having a predetermined thickness is applied to the top of a substrate and supports an overhanging conductor layer. When the evaporated layer reaches the predetermined thickness, it contacts the overhanging conductor layer and closes a detection circuit.

TITLE Four Pin Optical Fiber Connector. April 1979.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 04-79 p4688-4689
DISCLOSURE YO8770739
SUMMARY An optical fiber connector has been assembled using four cylinders or pins such that two of the cylinders provide a common alignment structure for the outer surface of the two fibers to be joined while the other two cylinders clamp the fibers in place.

TITLE Snap-In Fiber-Optic Aligners. March 1979.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD Crow, JD Harper, JS
PUBNAME TDB 03-79 p4282
DISCLOSURE YO8770574
SUMMARY Optical fibers may be releasably retained within a silicon substrate groove with a layer of elastic material that suitably overhangs each side of the groove.

TITLE Fiber-Optic Bypass Switch. March 1979.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 03-79 p4280-4281
DISCLOSURE YO8770740
SUMMARY An optical bypass for a repeater terminal in an optical data communication system may be implemented by means of a double-pole, double-throw fiber-optic switch which may be conveniently formed within a single alignment structure.

TITLE Single Pole Double Throw Low Loss Fiber Optic Switch. November 1978.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 11-78 p2582-2583
DISCLOSURE YO8770365
SUMMARY A fiber-optic switch wherein the end of an optic fiber is moved between two predetermined positions by the mechanical movement of two wire conductors which cross each other and the fiber, the mechanical movement of the conductors being caused by current flowing through the conductors in the presence of a magnetic field. The predetermined positions of the fiber are defined by fixed elements which limit the range of movement of the fiber. Output fibers lie at both predetermined positions.

TITLE Convex Micro Mirror Mode Control of a Laser. September 1978.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD
PUBNAME TDB 09-78 p1686-1687
DISCLOSURE YO8770263
SUMMARY Tailoring the reflectivity at the end of a laser so that it is higher for the lowest lasing mode than for the next higher lasing mode increases the relative threshold of the next higher mode and thus extends the useful (lowest mode) dynamic range of the laser.

TITLE Single Pole Single Throw Fiber Optic Switch. August 1978.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD Harper, JS Lean, EG
PUBNAME TDB 08-78 p1259
DISCLOSURE YO8770359
SUMMARY A single-pole single-throw fiber-optic switch may be made by axially aligning two fibers with a gap therebetween and selectively occluding the optical path with opaque material.

TITLE Single Spot Double Heterostructure Laser. April 1978.
INVENTOR Botez, D Comerford, LD Small, MB Zory, PS
PUBNAME TDB 04-78 p4654
DISCLOSURE YO8770133
SUMMARY A single-spot double heterostructure laser may be formed on a shoulder of a dovetail groove etched in a GaAs substrate by controlling layer growth so as to obtain a thinner or constricted active region over a shoulder of the groove and by directing current through the constricted region with a stripe contact.

TITLE Synchronized Output Laser Array. September 1977.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD Crow, JD
PUBNAME TDB 09-77 p1638-1639
DISCLOSURE YO8760236
SUMMARY Lower skewing is achieved between channels in a multichannel GaAs laser optical data link by injecting light from the clock fiber back into the other lasers via lightguide coupling.

TITLE Offset Laser to Groove Waveguide Coupler. September 1977.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD Crow, JD
PUBNAME TDB 09-77 p1606-1608
DISCLOSURE YO8760209
SUMMARY A GaAs laser array is coupled to channel groove optical waveguides in silicon by mounting the laser source directly onto the silicon substrate adjacent to the waveguides and deflecting the laser output downward with a first reflecting surface and then laterally with a second reflecting surface into the waveguides.

TITLE Coupling a Double Heterostructure Injection Laser to an Optical Fiber Waveguide. August 1977.
INVENTOR Comerford, LD Wilkinson, CDW
PUBNAME TDB 08-77 p1258-1261
DISCLOSURE YO8760034
SUMMARY The illustrated devices exploit the evanescent field in a double heterostructure injection laser to effect direct coupling to an optical fiber waveguide. The laser substrate is thinned across the lasing region so that the evanescent field of the laser radiation is able to penetrate into the optical fiber waveguide. Phase matching of the laser light and the light in the waveguide is effected by canting the axis of the fiber with respect to the propagation axis of the laser cavity.

Selected Publications

"Conversational Assistant for In-car Task Management," Joseph Reisinger, Mahesh Viswanathan and Liam Comerford, Proceedings of the 2005 AAAI Spring Symposium on Persistent Assistants (Stanford, CA). Technical Report SS-05-05. 129-136. (2005)

"The IBM personal speech assistant," Liam Comerford, David Frank, Ponani Gopalakrishnan, Ramesh Gopinath, Jan Sedivy, Proc. IEEE Intl. Conf. on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (2001)

"Storywriter: a speech oriented editor," Proc. ACM CHI'94 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Boston, Massachusetts, United States Pages: 277 - 278 1994 Catalina Danis, Liam Comerford, Eric Janke, Ken Davies, Jackie De Vries, Alex Bertrand

"ABYSS: An Architecture for Software Protection," IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering archive Volume 16 , Issue 6 (June 1990) Pages: 619 - 629 1990 Steve R. White, Liam Comerford

"ABYSS: A Trusted Architecture for Software Protection," Steve R. White, Liam Comerford, IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 1987: 38-51

"GaAs laser source package for multichannel optical links," Crow, John D.; Harper, J. S.; Comerford, Liam D.; Brady, Michael J.; Laff, Robert A., J. Opt. Soc. Am., vol. 67, page 708

"Fiber Optics For High Speed Computer Input/Output Channels," J. D. Crow ; L. D. Comerford ; M. Johnson ; R. T. Lynch, Jr. ; D. L. Rogers ; A. X. Widmer, Proc. SPIE 0326, Fiber Optics: Technology '82, 28 (October 15, 1982)

"Capillary Bonded Components For Injection Laser Transmitter Modules," L. D. Comerford, M. J. Brady, IEE Electronics Letters, July 8, 1982

"A General Purpose Digital Feedback Controller For GaAs Laser Diodes," L. D. Comerford, RC8749 March 18, 1981

"High Performance Fiber Optic Link for Computer Applications," J. D. Crow, D. L. Rogers, L. D. Comerford, A. X. Widmer, and P. A. Franaszek, Proceedings of the 6th European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC), York, U.K. Sept. 1980 p. 450

"Cast Tangential Plane Fiber Optic Connectors," L. D. Comerford, J. S. Harper, RC7724 June 19, 1979

"Optical Link Studies At Research," L. D. Comerford, E. G. Lean, RC7387 November 6, 1978

"Optical Link Studies At Research," L. D. Comerford, Dennis L. Rogers, Warren Y. Dere, John D. Crow, RC7379 November 2, 1978

"Thermal performance and limitations of silicon-substrate packaged GaAs laser arrays," R. A. Laff, L. D. Comerford, J. D. Crow, and M. J. Brady, Appl. Opt. 17, 778-784 (1978)

"Gallium arsenide laser-array-on-silicon package," J. D. Crow, L. D. Comerford, J. S. Harper, M. J. Brady, and R. A. Laff, Appl. Opt. 17, 479-485 (1978)

"GaAs laser array source package," John D. Crow, Liam D. Comerford, Robert A. Laff, Michael J. Brady, and John S. Harper Optics Letters, Vol. 1, Issue 1, pp. 40-42 (1977)

"Flip Chip Bonding GaAs Lasers Onto Fiber Optic Alignment Packages," L. D. Comerford, RC6598 June 23, 1977

"GaAs Laser Source Package for Multichannel Optical Links," D. Crow, J.S. Harper, L.D. Comerford, M.J. Brady & R.A. Laff, Topical Meeting on Optical Fiber Transmission, Digest of Technical Papers (Opt. Soc. Am), 1977, pp. WB6/1-3

"Fiber Optic Switches," L.D. Comerford, IBM Symposium, 1977

"Fiber Optic Laser Transmitter Package," L.D. Comerford, IBM Symposium, 1977

"Grating-coupled double-heterostructure AlGaAs diode lasers," Zory, P.; Comerford, L. Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of Volume 11, Issue 7, Jul 1975 Page(s): 451 - 457

"Selectively etched diffraction gratings in GaAs," Comerford, L.; Zory, P. Applied Physics Letters, Volume 25, Issue 4, id. 208 (1974).

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