Communication system and method

Details Communication system and method Communication system and method

1998-10-27

2002-10-29

Rinehart, Mark H. (Department: 2100)

Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput

Distributed data processing

C709S241000, C709S241000, C709S241000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06473781

ABSTRACT:

This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §§119 and/or 365 to 197 47 583.3 filed in Federal Republic of Germany on Oct. 28, 1997; the entire content of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a system and method of communicating information in a network, and in particular, the present invention relates to a system for communicating information, related to a plurality of tagged objects, in a network.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In recent years, data communication techniques have evolved tremendously. Electromechanical equipment for communicating information over larger distances is now widely replaced by digital systems using semiconductor switches. With the availability of cheap data processing capacity in today's world, it is now possible for virtually everyone to not only communicate voice and audio signals but also data stored on computers, data bases, etc. Especially with the advent of computer networks, such as the Internet, connecting computers virtually all over the world, easy and inexpensive access to digital information becomes possible worldwide.
The Internet and similarly other networks can be used for a variety of different applications. It is, for example, possible to retrieve information about a specific topic by accessing files which may be physically located at arbitrary places, essentially worldwide. The files may contain text, audio signal, images, video or data related to applications.
In order to be able to access the files it is required to know the name of the documents and further, it is required to know the addresses of network computers storing the documents. However, in many cases, information about the name and location of documents related to a desired topic or physical object is not available and, means for retrieving information about possible locations of documents or applications related to the topic are required. Therefore, on most common networks various applications are available, to assist an user in identifying names of documents as well as addresses of servers storing the documents related to the object.
Generally, the assisting applications perform a more or less detailed network search based on a keyword or sets of keywords provided by the user. A search result typically is a list of addresses and links to servers storing information related to the desired topic. The user can select each record of the list and retrieve associated documents or services. In many cases, however, it will turn out that a very long list of addresses and links is returned, but only a small number thereof is actually related to the desired topic. Key words supplied to a search application will often result in lists with thousands of entries and many entries of the list will only intermediately be related to the object or not at all.
Retrieving information from a network can therefore be a tedious and time-consuming task, and the result might not be satisfying. This situation is further severed by the swift growth of such networks.
There might be essentially two reasons causing the difficulty for a user to retrieve information about a specific object in. Even if the user knows some key facts about the desired object, the search might still miss important information concerning the object and secondly, often key information about the desired object is lacking and it therefore is not possible for the user to specify proper search terms, even if he knows which object he wants to retrieve information for. The user will also face the problem that it is not possible to get a determined answer whether desired information is available on the network or not, i.e., the information may exist, even if the conducted search failed.
It is therefore desirable to design a system, which readily delivers focused information about a certain topic or object without the need of performing time consuming network searches with sophisticated arrangements of search terms, in order to narrow down the number of “hits”.
In the physical world, a large number of different objects, manmade or natural, exists and similarly, in the virtual world of a computer network information exists about virtually all physical objects. However, as outlined before, it is difficult to retrieve information related to a specific object. Thus there is a need for a system, which links physical objects with services in the information space.
A number of proprietary systems is known from daily life, which allow to connect a limited number of objects to information about the objects. For example, such systems may link car spare parts to information of a data base. A part number may be entered into the system and drawings, information about availability, price, etc., is returned. Similar systems are encountered supermarkets. The systems are able to display information related to an object under investigation or to account for sold items, prices, etc.
However, all of the above systems have several limitations regarding scalability with respect to the number of objects and associated information services, robustness and generality.
Further, “broken” links, i.e., links and addresses stored by a user at one point in time and which are not any longer valid, pose a problem in computer networks. The location of information or services, i.e., the address of the computer of the network storing the information or service, as well as filenames usually change over time due to a rearrangement of servers, network addresses and the like. In this case, a called address or link for retrieving a certain service from the network may no longer be valid and an error message is returned to the user. Obviously, it is thus desirable to avoid the broken links, in order to be able to retrieve information about an object without fail.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore object of the invention to provide a system and method capable of communicating information associated with an arbitrary number of objects.
This object of the invention is solved by a communication system, comprising: a plurality of objects (D) each identified by an object tag (T); a plurality of application servers each having an address (IS; IS
1
-ISp) and each including memory means for storing a plurality of application data packets, each related to one of the objects and identified by an application identifier (AI
1
-AIm); reading means (R) for reading one of the plurality of object tags (T); a system kernel (K), including: a plurality of directory servers (DS; DS
1
-DSn) each having an address and including memory means (TM; AM) for storing in a distributed data base object data associating each of the objects with at least one of the application data packets; means for receiving the read object tag (T) from the reading means (R) and means for identifying the directory server for storing object data related to the read object tag and retrieving the object data; and means for retrieving at least one of the application data packets based on the object data or transmitting at least part of the object data to a receiving unit (M, DPU).
The object of the invention is further solved by a communication system, comprising: a plurality of objects (D) each identified by an object tag (T); a plurality of application servers each having an address (IS; IS
1
-ISp) and each including memory means for storing a plurality of application data packets, each related to one of the objects and identified by an application identifier (AI
1
-AIm); reading means (R) for reading one of the plurality of object tags (T); a system kernel (K), including: a plurality of directory servers (DS; DS
1
-DSn) each having an address and including memory means (TM; AM) for storing in a distributed data base object data associating each of the objects with at least one of the application data packets; memory means for storing a list of all available directory servers in a hashtable (H); means for receiving the read object tag (T) from the reading means (R); means (DS; DS
1
-DSn; AS; AS
1
-ASr), using a hashfunction for identifying the

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