Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
1998-09-24
2001-08-07
Cabeca, John (Department: 2173)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display driving control circuitry
Controlling the condition of display elements
C707S793000, C345S215000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06271840
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to Internet web browsers and search engine output, and more particularly to a visual Internet search engine results index or summary that enables faster perusal of search engine output on both a hyperlink and graphical level.
2. Description of the Related Art
The meteoric rise of Internet use reveals the demand for information from the personal and trivial to the specifically technical and even vital. The Internet is the name given the worldwide network of computers available for public access that provides email, FTP, telnet, and web page access. As used herein, the term “Internet” refers to both this worldwide network of computers and any network of two or more computers supporting browsing. “Web pages” is the shorthand term given to Internet computer files available for browsing on both a text and graphics basis. Browsing of such web pages provides an enhanced user experience as hyperlinks, or web page entries, leading to other web pages or other Internet resources allow users to obtain additional information on subjects associated with the web page currently being viewed. One of the first browsers was named MOSAIC and was developed by Mark Andreeson while at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Internet activity, and particularly Internet commerce, are of particular interest at this point due to relevant commercial aspects.
With the rise of the internet, an Internet connection (including those by telephone) becomes a link to the sum total of world civilization available electronically and made accessible by research, academic, and governmental institutions. Geography becomes much less of a limitation to the accessibility of information than does bandwidth. Any form of electronic communication can carry Internet information provided the user and the server have compatible modems or other interface devices.
With such a vast reservoir of information available to those accessing the Internet, it has become a difficult question as to how to find pertinent information on a textual search basis. Logic is not currently available that allows computers to derive meaning from the text files or other data that they store in their memory. Consequently, literal string searches are the only manner in which information is generally retrieved or accessed on the Internet. Such retrieval often includes the use of search engines such as ALTAVISTA, LYCOS, INFOSEEK, EXCITE, as well as hierarchically ordered lists, including YAHOO!
One of the great drawbacks of current search engines is the output that they provide to the user. Often, such results are in the form of a list of hyperlinks with a cursory, if not cryptic, excerpt of initial text present on the web page. Few, if any, search engine interfaces provide means by which to gauge graphically the contents of the web page. Such review or perusal of some summary form of a web page, even if cursory, provides a significant amount of information as the form in which graphical information is presented often indicates to a significant degree its content.
For example, professional web pages often have a very polished look and can be discriminated at a variety of levels of resolution. The use of marginal framing on the left hand side is a currently popular technique by which access to the entire web presence of an organization can be delivered throughout all of its web pages. However, hobbyist or personal pages have a different look in general, often highlighting the subject matter most pertinent to the designer of such web pages. For example, the American Kennel Club might have a web page highlighting figures of canines that would be easily distinguishable at almost any level of resolution from an entire computer screen down to a miniature thumbnail summary of the first web page screen. Well-recognized logos or the like would also stand out in order to provide the user a means by which web pages could be evaluated quickly and either discarded or marked mentally or otherwise for future and/or closer review.
As current search engines do not provide such an interface, and as such an interface is highly desirable in order to quickly filter through the vast information available from the simplest of searches, it would be of significant advantage and development in the art to provide such an interface.
Additionally, greater advantage could also be provided by allowing such an interface to reside either on the server side of an Internet connection or on the client or browser side thereto.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention remedies many of the shortcomings of current generation browsers by providing means by which thumbnail or other representational graphic information can accompany hyperlinks that result at the end of a search engine search. The present invention provides graphical summary information in a variety of user-friendly formats that greatly enhances the ability to review search engine results or other associated results having a plurality or a list of uniform/universal resource locators (URLs).
Initially, one or more URLs are passed to a web crawler that serves as an automatic process by which the URLs and all associated media are retrieved. These results of the URL retrieval requests are then passed to a page renderer that secures image scale and format information either from the source system/process, or otherwise. The page renderer then transmits as output reduced images of the web pages associated with the URLs as well as links to such URLs. The output is transmitted to a destination system, or process, such as a browser user interface or the like. In some embodiments, the page renderer may provide its own formatted output or, alternatively may leave that to the browser user interface.
In an alternative embodiment, the reduced image may carry with it an image map of clickable areas within the web page that correspond to similar areas inside the reduced image. Algorithms directed towards resolution of the reduced image and the fineness with which a user could manipulate a mouse may discriminate between closely-situated hyperlinks so that screen information could be accessed directly from the reduced image without difficulty.
By providing a list of hyperlinks as well as graphical representational of reduced images of the web pages associated with the hyperlink list, the present invention provides enhanced means by which vast amounts of Internet web page information can be delivered to the user. It then becomes an easier task for the user to discriminate between those links that are of interest and those links which are not based upon the summary graphical provided by the web page renderer.
Another advantage arising through the use of the present invention is the ability to compare several web pages simultaneously. As the data associated with such web pages is rendered by the present invention into a smaller size. Several of such rendered web pages can be displayed simultaneously on one computer screen, allowing rapid and convenient comparison and perusal.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a better and quicker review of search engine results and/or URL list information.
It is another object of the present invention to provide quicker review of search engine results by providing a graphical web page summary in conjunction with the hyperlink associated with the web page.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide quick and summary graphical review of search engine results and the like by providing URL-handling processes that can reside, at least in part, on either the server or the client of an Internet connection.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide summary graphical information of search engine or other URL list results with such a reduced image accompanied by an image map providing access to the hyperlinks present on the web page corresponding to the URL.
These and other objects and advantages of th
Finseth James Lee
Hermel Jerry
Pelz Bryan F.
Cabeca John
Cislo & Thomas LLP
May Michael
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