Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer-to-computer data addressing
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-22
2002-06-25
Geckil, Mehmet B. (Department: 2152)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer-to-computer data addressing
C709S213000, C709S203000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06412014
ABSTRACT:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
Not Applicable
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT
Not Applicable
REFERENCE TO A MICROFICHE APPENDIX
Not Applicable
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The Internet can link your computer to any other computer connected to the Internet. The reason the Internet works is that every computer connected to it uses the same set of rules and procedures (known as protocols) to control timing and data format. The set of commands and timing specifications used by the Internet is called Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, universally abbreviated as TCP/IP.
The TCP/IP protocols include the specifications that identify individual computers and exchange data between computers.
Most computers are not connected directly to the Internet. They are connected to smaller networks that connect through gateways to the Internet backbone. The core of the Internet is the set of backbone connections that ties the local networks together and the routing scheme that controls the way each piece of data finds its destination.
Internet activity can be defined as computers communicating with other computers using TCP/IP. The computer that originates a transaction must identify its intended destination with a unique address. Every computer on the Internet has a four-part numeric address, called the Internet Protocol address or IP address, which contains routing information that identifies its location. Each of the four parts in a number between 0 and 255, so an IP address looks like this:
128.296.516.214
Computers have no trouble working with big strings of numbers like this, but humans are not so skilled. Therefore, most computers on the Internet (except the ones used exclusively for internal routing and switching) also have an address which is part of a Domain Name System (DNS), an address that uses words instead of numbers.
DNS addresses generally have an individual name, followed by a top level domain name for a computer connected to the Internet that generally identifies the type of institution that uses the address, such as .com for commercial businesses or .edu for schools, colleges and universities. The University of Washington's DNS address is washington.edu, Microsoft's is microsoft.com.
Within the United States, the last letters of the domain name usually tell what type of institution owns the computer. Some large institutions and big corporations divide their domain addresses into small subdomains. You might even see some subdomains broken into even smaller sub-subdomains.
Top level domains can also identify the country in which the system is located, such as .ca for Canada or .fr for France or va.us can indicate an Internet domain in Virginia. Sometimes, a geographic domain address will also include a subdomain that identifies the district within the larger domain. For example, there is a commercial Internet service provider in the Canadian province of British Columbia called Mindlink. Its DNS address is
Mindlink.bc.ca
.
The basic model for Internet tools is used for many function: a client application on a user's computer requests information through the network from a domain name server, a powerful computer, containing a large memory, which acts as a shared storage resource. For example a user sends a domain name to the server, and the server returns the IP address, the four part numeric address which is then used to contact the computer having that particular IP address.
The above general information concerning the Internet was taken in part from COMPUTING FUNDAMENTALS, Second Edition, pages 295 to 297 by Peter Norton, published by Glencoe McGraw-Hill (1987).
One problem with the Internet is that each domain name (individual name plus top level domain) is unique, and duplicates are not allowed. Various companies have the same name but deal in different types of goods, but only the first company that registers on a top level domain is allowed to use that name, giving that particular company a monopoly on a name. The same is true with Trademarked goods. The same Trademark is used by different companies on different types of goods, but only the first company to register the name on a domain is allowed to use the Trademark as a domain name. This makes finding a company by its name or the name of the product that it produces or the service that it provides difficult using domain names.
One solution to the problem involves setting up an independent registry for “nicknames” as disclosed in the following patent.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,764,906 Edelstein et al (1998) at the abstract discloses the following. “A universal electronic delivery system allows a user to locate information on a distributed computer system or network such as the Internet by knowing or guessing a short mnemonic alias of an electronic resource without the user having to know the physical or other location denotation such as the universal resource locator (URL) of the desired resource. The system hardware includes a client computer, a local server, a central registry server, a value added server, and a root server. The universal electronic resource denotation, request and delivery system supports a personal aliasing (nicknaming) feature, a universal resource accessing feature for finding location information such as URL's relating to a query term, a “see also” feature for including information about related documents or resources within the record of a resource, a feature for updating local servers and client machines by periodically deleting those records which have changed, a “try again” and “mirroring” feature for aiding a user in obtaining the resource under adverse hardware or software conditions, and an authentication and administration feature that allows a user to administer the aliases and related data which pertain to his/her resources.” At col. 13, lines 24-63, Edelstein discloses “FIG. 6 depicts the organization of the dual implementation of the preferred embodiment of this invention. In this implementation, the client system
603
provides the user with the choice of whether to prefer the Local or the Wide Area or Global (Internet) interpretations of Resource Aliases. This Reference guides the local server
604
to search for a Resource alias or character string purported to be a Resource Alias first in its Local Registry
606
or first in the Global System
605
. If the preferred choice fails to match a Resource Alias, the secondary system (for that particular user) search is activated. Thus, each client request is accompanied by system preference data. The Client User interface in displaying lists of Resource Aliases or individual Resource Aliases and their associated Records, also displays whether that particular Resource Alias and Record are Local or Global (Wide Area or Internet). The local Server
604
is advantageously linked with the Central Registry or Root Server and Value Added Services,
607
of the Wide Area System.
A fictional example of such usage is one wherein the U.S. Department of Agriculture registers a global Internet Source Alias “DOA” and an associated Resource Alias “DOA/Pathology” which provides information about animal or plant pathology resources, and wherein a hospital complex maintains an Internet Domain which also serves as a Central Registry for local community Resource Aliases and registers a Source Alias “DOA” for information on “dead on arrival” and a Resource Alias “DOA/Pathology” for information about its pathology information database for DOD. A user of this community would elicit the local Resource Alias Record in response to a request for “DOD/Pathology” but could override this response by requesting global Resource Aliases. The local server would, in this case, request the Resource Alias Record from the Internet Central Registry on behalf of the Client and the User. Alternatively, the system could search the global, the local and the nickname caches for a sequence match and return all Resource Alias records corresponding to any match. The matching records would then be displayed for user select
Favre Donavon Lee
Geckil Mehmet B.
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