ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,380,099, issued on Aug. 5, was assigned to Amazon Technologies Inc. (Seattle).

"Remote grouping operations to perform queries for distinct values" was invented by Shriram Sridharan (Fremont, Calif.), Sungheun Wi (West Vancouver, Canada), Sangil Song (Kirkland, Wash.), Nanda Kaushik (Fremont, Calif.), Jaeyun Noh (Sunnyvale, Calif.), Yuri Volobuev (Walnut Creek, Calif.), Stefano Stefani (Issaquah, Wash.) and Murali Brahmadesam (Karnataka, India).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Remote grouping operations may be used to perform queries for distinct values. A query may be received at a query engine that includes a request for distinct items from...