Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer network managing – Computer network monitoring
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-02
2003-06-10
Dinh, Dung C. (Department: 2153)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer network managing
Computer network monitoring
C707S793000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06578078
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention generally pertains to locating documents via embedded links on computer networks in general, and more specifically, to the use of uniform resource locator (URL) hyperlinks in documents on the Internet and on other types of networks.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
An on-line information system typically includes one or more computer systems (the servers) that makes information available so that other computer systems (the clients) can access the information. Each server manages access to the information, which can be structured as a set of independent on-line services. A server and client communicate via messages conforming to a communication protocol and sent over a communication channel such as a computer network or through a dial-up connection.
Typical uses for on-line services include document viewing, electronic commerce, directory lookup, on-line classified advertisements, reference services, electronic bulletin boards, document retrieval, electronic publishing, keyword searching of documents, technical support for products, and directories of on-line services. The on-line service may make the information available free of charge, or for a fee, and may be on publicly accessible or private computer systems.
Information sources managed by the server may include files, databases, and applications on the server system or on an external computer system. The information that the server provides may simply be stored on the server, may be converted from other formats manually or automatically, may be computed on the server in response to a client request, may be derived from data and applications on the server or other machines, or may be derived by any combination of these techniques.
The user of an on-line service typically uses a specialized computer program, such as a browser, that is executed on the client system to access the information managed by an on-line service. Possible user capabilities include viewing, searching, downloading, printing, editing, and filing the information managed by the server. The user may also price, purchase, rent, or reserve services or goods offered through the on-line service.
An exemplary on-line service for catalog shopping might work as follows. A user running a program on a client system requests a connection to the catalog shopping service using a service name that either is well known or can be found in a directory. The request is received by the server employed by the catalog shopping service, and the server returns an introductory document that asks for an identifier and password. The client program displays this document, the user fills in an identifier and password that were assigned by the service in a previous visit, and the information is sent to the server. The server verifies the identifier and password against an authorization database, and returns a menu document that is then presented to the user. Each time the user selects a menu item, the selection is sent to the server, and the server responds with the appropriate new page of information, possibly including item descriptions or prices that are retrieved from a catalog database. By selecting a series of menu items, the user navigates to the desired item in the catalog and requests that the item be ordered. The server receives the order request, and returns a form to be completed by the user to provide information about shipping and billing. The user response is returned to the server, and the server enters the order information into an order database.
On-line services are available on the World Wide Web (WWW), which operates over the global Internet. The Internet is a publicly accessible wide area network (WAN) comprising a multitude of generally unrelated computer networks that are interconnected. Similar services are available on private networks called “Intranets” that may not be connected to the Internet, and through local area networks (LANs). The WWW and similar private architectures provide a “web” of interconnected document objects. On the WWW, these document objects are located at various sites on the global Internet. A more complete description of the WWW is provided in “The World-Wide Web,” by T. Berners-Lee, R. Cailliau, A. Luotonen, H. F. Nielsen, and A. Secret,
Communications of the ACM
, 37 (8), pp. 76-82, August 1994, and in “World Wide Web: The Information Universe,” by Berners-Lee, T., et al., in
Electronic Networking: Research, Applications and Policy
, Vol. 1, No. 2, Meckler, Westport, Conn., Spring 1992.
Among the types of document objects in an on-line service are documents and scripts. Documents that are published on the WWW are written in the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). This language is described in
HyperText Markup Language Specification
—2.0, by T. Berners-Lee and D. Connolly, RFC 1866, proposed standard, November 1995, and in “World Wide Web & HTML,” by Douglas C. McArthur, in
Dr. Dobbs Journal
, December 1994, pp. 18-20, 22, 24, 26 and 86. Many companies also are developing their own enhancements to HTML. HTML documents are generally static, that is, their contents do not change over time unless modified by a service or web site developer. HTML documents can be created using programs specifically designed for that purpose, such as Microsoft Corporation's FRONTPAGE™ Web Page publishing program, by editing a text file, or by executing a script file.
The HTML language is used for writing hypertext documents, which are more formally referred to as Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) documents that conform to a particular Document Type Definition (DTD). An HTML document includes a hierarchical set of markup elements; most elements have a start tag, followed by content, followed by an end tag. The content is a combination of text and nested markup elements. Tags, which are enclosed in angle brackets (‘<’ and ‘>’), indicate how the document is structured and how to display the document, as well as destinations and labels for hypertext links. There are tags for markup elements such as titles and headers, text attributes such as bold and italic, lists, paragraph boundaries, links to other documents or other parts of the same document, in-line graphic images, and for many other features.
The following lines of HTML briefly illustrate how the language is used:
Some words are <B>bold</B>, others are <I>italic</I>. Here we start a new paragraph.<P>Here's a link to
the <A HREF=“http://www.microsoft.com”>Microsoft Corporation </A>homepage.
This sample document is a hypertext document because it contains a hypertext “link” (hyperlink) to another document, in the line that includes “HREF=.” The format of this link is described below. A hypertext document may also have a link to other parts of the same document. Linked documents may generally be located anywhere on the Internet. When a user is viewing the document using a client program called a Web browser (described below), the links are displayed as highlighted words or phrases. For example, using a Web browser, the sample document above might be displayed on the user's screen as follows:
Some words are bold, others are italic. Here we start a new paragraph.
Here's a link to Microsoft Corporation homepage.
In the Web browser, the link may be selected, for example, by clicking on the highlighted area with a mouse. Typically, the screen cursor noticeably changes (shape and/or color) when positioned on a hypertext link. Selecting a link will cause the associated document to be displayed. Thus, clicking on the highlighted text “Microsoft Corporation” would fetch and display the associated homepage for that entity.
The HTML language also provides a mechanism (the image or “IMG” element) enabling an HTML document to include an image that is stored as a separate file. When the end user views the HTML document with a browser program, the included image is displayed to the user as part of the document, at the point where the image element occurred in the document.
Another kind of
Hennings Eric
McKee Christine Walpole
Smith Michael D.
Anderson Ronald M.
Dinh Dung C.
Microsoft Corporation
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