Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Discount or incentive
Reexamination Certificate
1998-11-16
2002-11-26
Choi, Kyle J. (Department: 3623)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Discount or incentive
C709S219000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06487538
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of computer software, and, more specifically, to advertising on the internet.
Portions of the disclosure of this patent document contain material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, Java, JavaOS, JavaStation, HotJava Views and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
2. Background Art
In a computer network environment and the internet, advertising is increasingly utilized by owners of web sites (referred to as web hosts) as a revenue source and for the advertisers to gain publicity and web site access. Web hosts sell advertising space on their web site and distribute web pages including the advertisements to internet users or clients. It is desirable for advertisements to target specific audiences and persons that may be interested in the specific good or service being advertised. Prior art advertising schemes poorly target audiences and create excessive internet traffic when retrieving and transmitting advertisements. These problems can be understood by reviewing networks, internets, advertising and how they work.
Networks
In modern computing environments, it is commonplace to employ multiple computers or workstations linked together in a network to communicate between, and share data with, network users. A network also may include resources, such as printers, modems, file servers, etc., and may also include services, such as electronic mail.
A network can be a small system that is physically connected by cables (a local area network or “LAN”), or several separate networks can be connected together to form a larger network (a wide area network or “WAN”). Other types of networks include the internet, tel-com networks, the World Wide Web, intranets, extranets, wireless networks, and other networks over which electronic, digital, and/or analog data may be communicated.
Computer systems sometimes rely on a server computer system to provide information to requesting computers on a network. When there are a large number of requesting computers, it may be necessary to have more than one server computer system to handle the requests.
The Internet
The Internet is a worldwide network of interconnected computers. An Internet client accesses a computer on the network via an Internet provider. An Internet provider is an organization that provides a client (e.g., an individual or other organization) with access to the Internet (via analog telephone line or Integrated Services Digital Network line, for example). A client can, for example, read information from, download a file from or send an electronic mail message to another computer/client using the Internet.
To retrieve a file or service on the Internet, a client must search for the file or service, make a connection to the computer on which the file or service is stored, and download the file or service. Each of these steps may involve a separate application and access to multiple, dissimilar computer systems. The World Wide Web (WWW) was developed to provide a simpler, more uniform means for accessing information on the Internet.
The components of the WWW include browser software, network links, servers. and WWW protocols. The browser software, or browser, is a user-friendly interface (i.e., front-end) that simplifies access to the Internet. A browser allows a client to communicate a request without having to learn a complicated command syntax, for example. A browser typically provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for displaying information and receiving input. Examples of browsers currently available include Mosaic, Netscape Navigator and Communicator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Cello.
Information servers maintain the information on the WWW and are capable of processing a client request. Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) is the standard protocol for communication with an information server on the WWW. HTTP has communication methods that allow clients to request data from a server and send information to the server.
To submit a request, the client contacts the HTTP server and transmits the request to the HTTP server. The request contains the communication method requested for the transaction (e.g., GET an object from the server or POST data to an object on the server). The HTTP server responds to the client by sending a status of the request and the requested information. The connection is then terminated between the client and the HTTP server.
A client request therefore, consists of establishing a connection between the client and the HTTP server, performing the request, and terminating the connection. The HTTP server does not retain any information about the request after the connection has been terminated. HTTP is, therefore, a stateless protocol. That is, a client can make several requests of an HTTP server, but each individual request is treated independent of any other request. The server has no recollection of any previous request.
Instead of transmitting the information from the server that maintains the information, some systems utilize what is referred to as a proxy. Referring to
FIG. 1
, a proxy
102
is a server that carries out requests transmitted to it (i.e., from client
100
), keeping copies of fetched documents or information for some time so that they can be accessed more quickly in the future, speeding up access for commonly requested information. This maintaining of information and fetched documents by the proxy
102
is referred to as caching and the information maintained in the proxy
102
is referred to as a cache or proxy cache.
To protect information in internal computer networks from external access, a firewall is utilized. A firewall is a mechanism that blocks access between the client and the server. To provide limited access to information, a proxy or proxy server may sit atop a firewall and act as a conduit, providing a specific connection for each network connection. Proxy software retains the ability to communicate with external sources, yet is trusted to communicate with the internal network. For example, proxy software may require a username and password to access certain sections of the internal network and completely block other sections from any external access.
An addressing scheme is employed to identify Internet resources (e.g., HTTP server, file or program). This addressing scheme is called Uniform Resource Locator (URL). A URL contains the protocol to use when accessing the server (e.g., HTTP), the Internet domain name of the site on which the server is running, the port number of the server, and the location of the resource in the file structure of the server.
The WWW uses a concept known as hypertext. Hypertext provides the ability to create links within a document to move directly to other information. To activate the link, it is only necessary to click on the hypertext link (e.g., a word or phrase). The hypertext link can be to information stored on a different site than the one that supplied the current information. A URL is associated with the link to identify the location of the additional information. When the link is activated, the client's browser uses the link to access the data at the site specified in the URL.
If the client request is for a file, the HTTP server locates the file and sends it to the client. An HTTP server also has the ability to delegate work to gateway programs. The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) specification defines a mechanism by which HTTP servers communicate with gateway programs. A gateway program is referenced using a URL. The HTTP server activates the program specified in the URL and uses CGI mechanisms to pass program data sent by the client to the gate
Baehr Geoffrey
Gupta Amit
Venkataraman Sriraman
Choi Kyle J.
Gunnison McKay & Hodgson, L.L.P.
Jeanty Romain
McKay Philip J.
Sun Microsystems Inc.
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