Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1999-12-31
2001-10-09
Alam, Hosain T. (Department: 2172)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06301576
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a system for retrieving information from a database. More specifically, the present invention improves a system's response time so that a user's request to view new information is serviced quickly.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The recent proliferation of electronic text and multimedia databases has placed at society's fingertips a wealth of information and knowledge. Typically, a computer is employed that locates and retrieves information from the database in response to a user's input. The requested information is then displayed on the computer's monitor. Modern database systems permit efficient, comprehensive, and convenient access to an infinite variety of documents, publications, periodicals, and newspapers.
Databases come in various forms. Database systems based on remotely-located, multiple-user databases, such as Westlaw, LEXIS/NEXIS, and Dialog, are well known. These systems employ a central computer that services requests and queries from multiple, remotely-located researchers. More recently, local, single-user databases such as those on CD-ROM have become quite popular. In all cases, databases contain far too much information to be stored in a computer's local random access memory. For this reason, the information must be stored in a database external to memory, and the database is accessed only as needed.
Information in the database is normally accessed through a user-generated Boolean query. As is well known in the art, a query comprises one or more search terms and connectors that define the relationship between multiple search terms. For example, a boolean query can be formulated that will find only those documents where the words “Hadley” and “Baxendale” occur in the same sentence. Another query might require that “Hadley” and “Baxendale” be found within a given number of words of each other. Other queries might restrict the search so as to require that all the search documents be published in a certain year, or range of years.
Another querying technique employs the use of a “natural language” processor. The natural language processor interprets a user-formulated query consisting of a list search terms, and then finds the most relevant documents based on a statistical analysis of the uniqueness of the search terms. “Uniqueness” is usually defined by the contents of the database.
Whatever querying technique is used, a search engine uses the query define a class of documents within the database, and locates each of the documents within the class. The user then browses the search results by “paging through” one or more of the search documents.
Although databases are capable of accommodating huge amounts of information, retrieving information from databases is much slower than retrieving information from local random access memory. In multiple-user, remotely-located databases, for example, the user typically retrieves search documents over an ordinary telephone line, which is a very narrow bottleneck. In single-user, local systems, retrieval of search documents requires that the documents be read from a relatively slow local mass storage device (e.g., a CD-ROM drive).
Consequently, today's database systems are plagued by the problem of slow document retrieval. After a query is processed and search documents are identified, the user begins browsing the search results by studying the first view (or screen of information) from one of the search documents. The user then either “pages-down” to the next view within the same document, or moves to another search document. Each of these moves requires that new information be retrieved from the database before it can be displayed on the screen. Since the retrieval time is substantial, as described above, the database system is slow in responding to the user's request for the information.
The result is that while today's electronic database systems are able to efficiently locate within a vast database those search documents that satisfy a query, browsing the search documents is inefficient, slow, and tedious. There exists a compelling need, therefore, for a database system that has a quicker response time so that the database system displays information very soon after the user requests it. Such a system will significantly improve the useability and efficiency of modern database systems.
SUMMARY
This need can be satisfied by effectively utilizing the time the user spends studying the information on the display screen. In a database system (or document retrieval system) in one embodiment of the present invention, information that the user is likely to eventually request is preloaded into memory while the user is viewing other information. The present invention takes advantage of the fact that it is possible to accurately predict the information that the user will eventually request be shown on the display. The present invention also takes advantage of the fact that the time that the user spends viewing displayed information is often sufficient to advantageously preload a substantial amount of information.
When the user does request new information, the requested information is retrieved from memory if the information is in memory. And if the requested information is in memory, the database system can respond to the user's request for new information very quickly.
In one embodiment of the present invention, a method of retrieving information from documents in a database using a computer having a memory unit, a monitor, and an input device carries out the steps of: (1) executing a query on the database to find search documents that satisfy the query; (2) loading a display view into the memory unit from the database, wherein the display view is from one of the search documents; (3) displaying the display view; (4) preloading an anticipated view into the memory unit from the database before the anticipated view is requested through the input device; (5) monitoring the input device for a requested view; and (6) displaying the requested view by retrieving the requested view from the memory unit if the requested view is in the memory unit.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved database system.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a database system that quickly responds to a user's request for information.
It is a further object of the present invention to quickly respond to a user's request for a dynamically-related search document.
It is a further object of the present invention to improve CD-ROM database systems.
It is a still further object of the present invention to improve on-line database systems.
With these and other objects, advantages, and features of the invention that may become hereinafter apparent, the nature of the invention may be more clearly understood by reference to the following detailed description of the invention, the appended claims, and to the several drawings herein.
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