Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1997-06-13
2001-06-26
Vu, Kim (Department: 2172)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06253216
ABSTRACT:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
Not applicable.
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH
Not applicable.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing a personal page over a computer network. More particularly, the method and apparatus provide users with a secure way to display personal information to other computer network users.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Many people are familiar with the “personals” section of many newspapers. The personals are advertisements placed by people who would like to meet other people with similar likes and interests. People place personal advertisements in newspapers to find activity partners to make new friends, to make acquaintances or to find people with whom intimate relationships may be formed.
As a result of the popularity of personals advertisements in newspapers, and the advent of the Internet's World Wide Web, systems for providing personals advertisements on networked computer systems have appeared. These personals systems may be made available to the public through software application programs referred to as Web browsers which are used to locate resources on the World Wide Web.
To date, however, these systems for providing personals on computer networks consist largely of the same information that is available in the newspaper advertisements. That is, the computerized personals merely mimic the newspaper advertisements. Conventional systems for providing personals advertisements on computer networks fail to utilize the added capabilities computers provide over newspapers. For example, different forms of personal information content, such as voice or image content may be provided on demand to a user via a personal computer coupled to a computer network. Conventional systems for providing personals advertisements on computer networks similarly fail to take advantage of the available resources and features of such networks. For example, conventional systems fail to provide communications between the persons placing the personals advertisements, and fail to effectively utilize the ability to restrict access to such information or communications.
Internet and other network service providers sometimes provide users with the ability to generate user-defined sites or pages on the World Wide Web. A user defined page allows users to convey information to the public by displaying text, images, movies, sounds and other multimedia information on such pages. The ability to convey information on such pages, however, often requires that the user be able to generate the page using a programming language or other protocol such as Hypertext Markup Language (“HTML”). One problem with this approach to providing user defined pages, however, is that many users of personals are not familiar with such languages.
Also, these World Wide Web pages provide no privacy. World Wide Web pages are generally available to any user of the Internet. Since the Internet allows access by users world-wide, a relatively large number of Internet users exist. The number of persons utilizing the Internet is generally believed to be at least in the tens of millions. With such a large number of users, it is desirable to restrict access to information on some pages or even to restrict access to some pages.
Another problem with World Wide Web pages is that it can be difficult to direct a desired audience to a particular page. The owner of such a page must simply hope that the desired audience, out of some tens of millions of users, finds the page.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a secure method for providing personal information in a network environment which makes use of the multimedia opportunities available on such a medium, and makes the information available in a private way, i.e., only to those people that the person providing the information wishes to see the information.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the present invention, a system for generating a page for display on a computer system accessible to a plurality of remote users through a computer network includes means for displaying at a user site at least one template, means for inputting user-data to be included in a predetermined area of the template, means for storing the user-data in a predetermined field of a database and means for retrieving the user-data from the database and for displaying the template and the user-data on a display of the computer system. In one embodiment, the system may be used to provide a personals page for use in a personals-on-line network. In this embodiment, remote users may connect to the personals-on-line network through a larger network, such as the Internet. The personals-on-line network includes at least one server computer which can be accessed by the remote users. The local computer network also has at least one computer software program and at least one database located therein.
The system prompts a remote user to select a page template for displaying the personal page. The system next allows the remote user to contribute text and graphics to the personal page. The system also allows the remote user to authorize others to review the personal page. The system stores attributes representing the layout of the personal page, the text and graphics contributed by the remote user, and the authorization information entered by the remote user in the one or more databases stored in the server computer.
The personal page may then be displayed upon request to an authorized viewer by retrieving attributes of the personal page from the one or more databases, creating a graphical page display from the attributes, and displaying the page to the authorized viewer.
In accordance with a further aspect of the present invention, a method of generating a personal page accessible to authorized users over a computer network includes the steps of storing a page template in a database accessible by a server processor, receiving user-defined information from a remote processor over a public network and storing the user-defined information in the database accessible by the server processor. With this particular arrangement, a method of storing information in a database and of utilizing the database to provide a page for viewing on a processing system coupled to the server over a public network is provided. In one particular embodiment, a user defined personals page for use in a personals-on-line network is provided. The personal page may be provided in such a way that only certain users are allowed to access the page. Thus, the page is relatively private. Moreover, the user may select one template from a plurality of different templates and thus the page can be customized. Each user, therefore, may generate their own unique personal page.
REFERENCES:
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patent: 5893111 (1999-04-01), Sharon, Jr. et al.
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LDS, LDS Singles Connections, singles.ids.net, pp. 1-2, Dec. 1996.
Dunn Kevin A.
Geller Dennis
Maron Mikel
Sutcliffe Andrew B.
Kindred Alford W.
Nutter & McClennen & Fish LLP
Tele-Publishing, Inc.
Vu Kim
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