Program-listing appendix

Details Program-listing appendix Program-listing appendix

1996-08-22

2002-03-05

Alam, Hosain T. (Department: 2172)

Data processing: database and file management or data structures

Database design

Data structure types

C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06353822

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to retrieval and viewing of computer-stored documents, and in particular to automated assistance in browsing stored resources, such as those available on the Internet.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The Internet is a worldwide “network of networks” that links millions of computers through tens of thousands of separate (but intercommunicating) networks. Via the Internet, users can access tremendous amounts of stored information and establish communication linkages to other Internet-based computers. Much of the Internet is based on the “client-server” model of information exchange. This computer architecture, developed specifically to accommodate the “distributed computing” environment that characterizes the Internet and its component networks, contemplates a server (sometimes called the host)—typically a powerful computer or cluster of computers that behaves as a single computer—which services the requests of a large number of smaller computers, or clients, which connect to it. The client computers usually communicate with a single server at any one time, although they can communicate with one another via the server or can use a server to reach other servers. A server is typically a large mainframe or minicomputer cluster, while the clients may be simple personal computers. Servers providing Internet access to multiple subscriber clients are referred to as “gateways”; more generally, a gateway is a computer system that connects two computer networks.
In order to ensure proper routing of messages between the server and the intended client, the messages are first broken up into data packets, each of which receives a destination address according to a consistent protocol, and which are reassembled upon receipt by the target computer. A commonly accepted set of protocols for this purpose are the Internet Protocol, or IP, which dictates routing information; and the transmission control protocol, or TCP, according to which messages are actually broken up into IP packets for transmission for subsequent collection and reassembly. TCP/IP connections are quite commonly employed to move data across telephone lines.
The Internet supports a large variety of information-transfer protocols. One of these, the World Wide Web (hereafter, simply, the “web”), has recently skyrocketed in importance and popularity; indeed, to many, the Internet is synonymous with the web. Web-accessible information is identified by a uniform resource locator or “URL,” which specifies the location of the file in terms of a specific computer and a location on that computer. Any Internet “node”—that is, a computer with an IP address (e.g., a server permanently and continuously connected to the Internet, or a client that has connected to a server and received a temporary IP address)-can access the file by invoking the proper communication protocol and specifying the URL. Typically, a URL has the format http://<host>/<path>, where “http” refers to the HyperText Transfer Protocol, “host” is the server's Internet identifier, and the “path” specifies the location of the file within the server. Each “web site” can make available one or more web “pages” or documents, which are formatted, tree-structured repositories of information, such as text, images, sounds and animations.
An important feature of the web is the ability to connect one file to many other files using “hypertext” links. A link appears unobtrusively as an underlined portion of text in a document; when the viewer of this document moves the cursor over the underlined text and clicks, the link—which is otherwise invisible to the user—is executed and the linked file retrieved. That file need not be located on the same server as the original file.
Hypertext and searching functionality on the web is typically implemented on the client machine, using a computer program called a “web browser.” With the client connected as an Internet node, the browser utilizes URLs-provided either by the user or a link—to locate, fetch and display the specified files. “Display” in this sense can range from simple pictorial and textual rendering to real-time playing of audio and/or video segments. The browser passes the URL to a protocol handler on the associated server, which then retrieves the information and sends it to the browser for display; the browser causes the information to be cached (usually on a hard disk) on the client machine and displayed. The web page itself contains information specifying the specific Internet transfer routine necessary for its retrieval. Thus, clients at various locations can view web pages by downloading replicas of the web pages, via browsers, from servers on which these web pages are stored. Browsers also allow users to download and store the displayed data locally on the client machine.
Most web pages are written in HyperText Markup Language, or HTML, which breaks the document into syntactic portions (such as headings, paragraphs, lists, etc.) that specify layout and contents. An HTML file can contain elements such as text, graphics, tables and buttons, each identified by a “tag.” Web browsers utilize HTML interpreters that execute these instructions to display the page.
The number of files accessible just on the web is enormous and constantly growing. As a result, attempting to locate and navigate among documents of interest within the huge space of available files is generally a haphazard process. Certainly the presence of hyperlinks assists the user by identifying files related to the one currently under scrutiny. Any given file probably features several hyperlinks, however, and execution of any of these links typically draws a new web file with hyperlinks of its own. And of course hyperlinks are included at the discretion of a web-document author; they do not, nor are they intended to, provide an exhaustive catalog of web pages containing related information.
In a typical session a user, operating a web browser on a client machine, locates his or her first web page either through prior knowledge of its URL, or using a “search engine” or “web crawler” that locates pages of possible interest based on user-specified key words. Publicly accessible search engines such as ALTA VISTA, YAHOO! and LYCOS process the user's search query and return a list of candidate web pages containing the query, any of which can be readily retrieved and viewed by the user through execution of its associated hyperlink. The user scans through the list of candidate web pages, clicking on entries of possible interest, examining these, and possibly executing hyperlinks associated with some of the retrieved documents. The totality of web pages the user may examine in this fashion form a tree structure, with the candidate pages returned by the search engine constituting the roots. The user's examination can proceed “depthwise” from a root along an arbitrary path of pages linked by a sequence of hyperlinks, or can proceed “breadthwise” at a given hierarchical level through examination of all hyperlinks associated with a given page; generally, a user's session involves both depthwise and breadthwise searching without any advance strategy. Search engines may assist the user by providing a questionnaire, responses to which help focus the search based on explicitly stated user preferences. Such “conversational” tools, however, intrude on the user's browsing activities.
The process of searching, even with automated assistance, is by no means assured to locate the most relevant web pages, due both to the combinatorial expansion of the search space (i.e., the number of hyperlink-accessible pages) with increasing depth, and the difficulty of assessing, merely from its hyperlink designation, the potential usefulness of another web page or the likelihood that another page will contain further useful hyperlinks. The user's time constraints and interest level generally operate to limit the search to a few sites chosen with little information.
The problem is not confined to the Internet. For

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