Systems and methods of determining microroyalties

• US 9,489,697 B1
• Filed: 03/15/2013
• Issued: 11/08/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microroyalties, LLC
• Original Assignee: Microroyalties, LLC
• Inventors: Guerrieri, David A., Guerrieri, Mario Antonio
• Primary Examiner(s): Masud, Rokib
• Application Number:
  US13/842,341
• Time in Patent Office: 1,334 Days
• Field of Search: 709/205, 709/226, 705/7.13, 705/30, 717/124
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/10 Tax strategies

Abstract

Systems and methods for determining a payment to a contributor are provided herein. Methods may include determining the contributor of a portion of software in a collaborative work; tracking the number of times the portion of software is used in a collaborative work; determining a weighting for each contributed portion of software; and calculating the proportional payment to each contributor based on the weighing and an income from the collaborative work.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having a compiler program embodied thereon, the compiler program executable by a processor in a computing device to perform a method for determining a proportional payment to each contributor of software in source code of a collaborative work, the software comprising a plurality of contributed portions, the method executed by the compiler program comprising:

compiling the source code into an executable code using the compiler program;

determining for each contributor one or more portions of software in the executable code contributed by the contributor using the compiler program;

tracking a number of times each contributed portion of software is executed in the executable code using the compiler program;

determining a weighting for each contributed portion of software, the weighting based at least in part on the number of times each contributed portion of software is executed in the executable code tracked by the compiler program; and

calculating the proportional payment to each contributor based at least in part on the weighting, using the compiler program.

2. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises tagging each contributed portion of software in the executable code of the collaborative work with a contributor'"'"'s name or identifier.

3. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the proportional payment is calculated based on a product of the weighting and an income from the collaborative work.

4. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 3, wherein the weighting is further based on a judge rating of the contributed portion of software provided by a judge in relation to a judge rating of the collaborative work.

5. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 4, wherein the method further comprises calculating the proportional payment to a judge for each reviewed portion of software.

6. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 3, wherein the income is one or more of subscription income, advertising income, license fees, and pay-per-view fees.

7. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 3, wherein the income comprises a market value of the collaborative work.

8. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, the tracking further comprising collecting, in a database, a number of executions of the collaborative work and the number of executions of each portion of software therein, wherein the weighting for each contributed portion of software is further based on the number of executions of the contributed portion of software in relation to the number of executions of the collaborative work.

9. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises receiving from a commissioner a selection of at least a portion of the collaborative work to assign to a judge for rating.

10. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises receiving from an editor one or more of a determination of which portion of software to retain in the collaborative work or revisions to one or more portions of software, wherein the revisions are performed before a judge rates the portions of software.

11. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the compiler is further in communication with a server that tracks an accounting of the proportional payment to each contributor.

12. A system comprising:

a memory for storing executable instructions including a compiler configured for compiling source code of a collaborative work written by a plurality of contributors, each of the contributors having contributed a portion of software to the source code, the compiler further configured for determining a proportional payment to each contributor of the collaborative work;

a processor configured to execute the compiler to perform a method, the method comprising;

compiling the source code into an executable code;

determining for each contributor the contributed portion of software in the source code;

tracking a number of times the contributed portion of software is executed in compiling the source code;

determining a weighting for the contributed portion of software, the weighting based at least in part on the tracked number of times the contributed portion of software is executed in compiling the source code; and

calculating the proportional payment for the contributor based on the weighting.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the compiler is further configured for tagging the portion of software in the collaborative work with a name or an identifier of the contributor of the portion of software.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the executable instructions further include program code executable by the processor to perform a method comprising:

determining an income of the contributed portion of software and an income of the collaborative work; and

calculating the proportional payment based on a product of the weighting and the income from the collaborative work.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the weighting is further based on a judge rating of the contributed portion provided by a judge, in relation to a judge rating of the collaborative work.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the income of the collaborative work is one or more of subscription income, advertising income, license fees, and pay-per-view fees.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein the income of the collaborative work comprises a market value of the collaborative work.

18. The system of claim 12, the tracking further comprising collecting, in a database, a number of executions of the collaborative work and the number of executions of each portion of software therein, wherein the weighting is further based on the number of executions of the contributed portion in relation to the number of executions of the collaborative work.

19. The system of claim 12, wherein the compiler is further configured to generate code in the executable code for the tracking a number of times a contributed portion of software is actually executed when the executable code is run.

20. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having a decompiler program embodied thereon, the decompiler program executable by a processor in a computing device to perform a method for determining a proportional payment to each contributor of a portion of software in source code that has been compiled into a collaborative work, the method executed by the decompiler program comprising:

decompiling the collaborative work to determine a contributor of a portion of software in the collaborative work;

tracking, from decompiling the collaborative work, a number of times the contributed portion of software is executed in the collaborative work;

determining, from decompiling the collaborative work, a weighting for the contributed portion of software, the weighting based on the tracked number of times the contributed portion of software is executed in the collaborative work; and

calculating the proportional payment to each contributor based on the weighting and an income from the collaborative work.