Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
2001-09-17
2004-09-28
Kindred, Alford (Department: 2172)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C707S793000, C713S152000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06799174
ABSTRACT:
The following description includes some copyrighted material. While Applicants do not object to the copying of this specification for patent related purposes, Applicants reserve all copyrights to themselves and/or the assignee of the present invention.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Overview
The present invention relates to a networked, information gathering and delivery system. More specifically, the present invention relates to a network based (intranet-based, Internet-based, extranet-based) cataloging system that provides a user with a plurality of methods of gathering and analyzing information relating to a subject of interest.
2. Related Art
Manufacturing and service industries exist to provide products and services to end users while making a profit at the same time. In this day and age, many businesses do not control the entire manufacturing process from collecting raw materials to outputting a high level end product. Rather, most businesses take existing components and incorporate the components into larger products. An example includes engineering design systems in which engineers take existing components and design new products using these components. To reduce costs, these businesses generally attempt to maximize profits through finding the most affordable materials and processes that satisfy their needs. Simultaneously, to meet the performance or quality objectives for the end product, business must find materials and processes that satisfy a variety of other criteria. Unfortunately, depending on the industry, finding the lowest cost materials or services which meet specified criteria can become very costly and time consuming.
Currently, the designers selecting the various components for a final design can quickly become overwhelmed by the available data as many lower end suppliers may produce similar products. Sorting the available products and attempting to match potential products into an overall design scheme quickly becomes a formidable task when a single end product may contain tens to hundreds to thousands of individual components with each component having its own set of associated data (for example, operating tolerances, power consumption, size constraints, etc.). Further, the manufacturing process, which produces the final design, may affect the end product in ways unconsidered by the product development team. Because of the significant burden placed on designers to handle design while another set of engineers generally handle the realization of the design through a manufacturing process, the end product may suffer from poor integration of the design and manufacturing processes. To this end, product support also suffers as the team handling product support generally has minimal information regarding the actual design and manufacturing processes and how these processes affect the end product. At least one cause of the failures of the current design, manufacturing, and product support model is the requirement that all steps are handled by an engineer with minimal to no automated support for accommodating the demands of the current model. In fact, most information has to be manually integrated and considered in the formation of a final product.
Another failure of the current model is the lack of integrated tools available to a designer. Currently, a designer must wade through technical information and sequentially use disparate, unintegrated electronic tools to perform a variety of tasks such as requirements definitions, computer aided design (CAD), structural analysis, costing, manufacturing planning, etc. Accordingly, a need exists to automate and integrate the design function as much as possible.
The problems associated with the current design and manufacturing model exist in other industry sectors as well. For example, the real estate industry uses as its primary search and indexing tool the multiple listing service (MLS). This service allows real estate brokers to list properties as well as search for properties using a simple Boolean search function. However, the real estate agent is then required to peruse through the list of retrieved entries until a match is found to many diverse buyer requirements. Further, there is no ability to link to other sources of other information (for example, financial institutions providing loan information, etc.) that may be relevant to the information contained within the MLS. Moreover, MLS is limited to real estate agents only. Independent sellers and buyers cannot list and retrieve the listings available in MLS.
Unlike the restricted nature of MLS, the Internet provides easy access to a variety of information. Search engines (such as Lycos™, AltaVista™, and other search engines) exist that repeatedly scan the Internet (a.k.a., the World Wide Web or, simply, the Web) for content. Conventional search engines retrieve and store the textual content of HTML pages of the Web in large indexes. A user may later pass simple Boolean queries to databases created by the search engines and retrieve HTML pages relating to the submitted queries. The problem with such Boolean queries for these large indexes of stored information is that actually getting the desired information is cumbersome. Also, current systems must treat the found content as flat, unstructured data; for there is no way to create or find associations between the elements stored on HTML pages. Further, the appearance of subject-oriented searches fails to satisfy the needs of designers and like individuals interested in a narrow field of industry. To this end, current search systems are not directed to the needs of specific users.
A metadata framework has been proposed by Sakata et al. in Metadata Mediation: Representation and Protocol. Computer Networks and the Systems 29 (1997). Pp. 1137-1146. Sakata et al. discloses an ontology in a metadata framework. However, all navigation of the metadata appears to direct an end user back onto the original sources of the data on the Internet to receive requested information. Difficulties with constantly pursuing information located on multiple sites over the Internet include the occasional problems of the inability to contact desired sites due to communication breakdowns or bottlenecks. Accordingly, while Sakata et al. provides a framework for creating and expanding a metadata protocol, it relies on continuous real-time access/availability to the distributed information located across the Internet for the underlying information for the end users and is, thus, open to delays and related problems.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a computer-based information organizing, searching, retrieving, and exchanging platform. Through gathering organized information, a consumer accesses the gathered information to create an end product in a shorter period of time. The present invention uses a predefined common language and format (for example, hypertext markup language (HTML) extended to implement an underlying organizational structure or XML and related schema) for organizing information placed on the network of computers. When retrieved the organized information is readily sorted and cataloged into a repository of similar cataloged information.
When placing the information in a form readily accessible by other computers (for example, on the Internet), a supplier provides the information in a format including tags which characterize the formatted information. The format may include HTML, XML, and other mark-up languages. These tags may include a “class” identifier with each class having various “attributes” and “methods”. The various attributes are contemplated to include “features” (comprising character strings), “parameters” (comprising numerical strings), and “index” tags. Through listing an item as belonging to a class and having various attributes, a supplier may fully identify the item using this structured language. Also, each class may be a nested item of another class. So, each component may be broken down into its elemental parts through classifying each of its parts individually. Notably, t
Chipman Richard R.
Karandikar Harshavardhan M.
Laskey Kenneth J.
Mankofsky Alan
Warren Gary
Banner & Witcoff , Ltd.
Kindred Alford
Science Applications International Corporation
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