ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 2 -- United States Patent no. 12,645,886, issued on June 2, was assigned to Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Redmond, Wash.).

"Directive generative thread-based user assistance system" was invented by Xavier Amatriain-Rubio (Los Gatos, Calif.), Christopher M. Bremer (Santa Barbara, Calif.), Carlos H. Lopez (Westfield, N.J.), Pierre Y. Monestie (Half Moon Bay, Calif.), Laura Teclemariam (Hayward, Calif.), Yamini Kasera (San Francisco), Michaeel Kazi (Foster City, Calif.), Zhoutong Fu (Milpitas, Calif.), Muchen Wu (Mountain View, Calif.), Winnie Narang (San Carlos, Calif.), Yiyuan Tu (Milpitas, Calif.), Jaime Munoz Alcalde (Brooklyn, N.Y.), Nitin Pasumarthy (Sunnyvale, Calif.), Thao Bach (Mountain View, Calif.), Davi...