Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Remote data accessing
Reexamination Certificate
1999-11-09
2001-06-26
Maung, Zarni (Department: 2154)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Remote data accessing
C709S238000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06253239
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The instant invention relates generally to a computerized system and method for providing flexible access to heterogeneous information from numerous sources. More specifically, the invention relates to a system for accessing and presenting data by creating an object oriented organization of the data that can be used to customize the format for displaying the information in real time.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The explosion in recent years of the availability and use of the worldwide Internet has made available an almost limitless amount of information. For corporations, this has meant that their internal computer networks, formerly difficult to expand and maintain, have become merely private corners of the vast Internet, making tremendous data available at every desktop. The World Wide Web and intranets continue to grow, and while it has become easier to make information available through such services, it is often impossible to obtain access to exactly the right information in a desired form. For example, the recent proliferation of the use of browsers has created an instantaneous demand for information formatted in either HTML or other browser-readable formats. As is known, documents stored in HTML include embedded within the data formatting codes that tell the ultimate browser how to display the information. For example, headers may be shown in bold, while chapter titles are displayed as hyperlinks to display other sections of the document or other documents. As a result of the demand for such document coding, organizations and individuals have devoted substantial effort and expense to the task of copying and reformatting data that already exists on the Internet into HTML-coded information as a necessary step for making such information available via web browsers.
With corporations devoting millions of man-hours to duplicate and adapt corporate data into forms more suitable for presentation on a Web-based Internet or Intranet or other network, multiplied data-maintenance costs and the proliferation of obsolete data are new problems created. Specially coded/formatted data can quickly become obsolete when browser languages change or are improved by advances.
One possible, but unworkable, solution, is to simply display the documents in whatever format they are stored. Straight text is shown as straight text, for example. However, this display strategy loses the increased functionality and improved readability given by enhanced and/or customized formatting and hyperlinks. Further, displaying more complex formatted data, such as word-processing and page-layout formats, would, in practicality, require running the programs that created them to achieved the look and layout particular to that program, or at the very least customized translators must be created to emulate those programs, an often impossibly complicated and cumbersome solution. Even when it can be done, there are often problems of version control, unavailability of translating tools and inconsistent presentations.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the deficiencies of the prior art, it is an object of the present invention to provide a system that will display stored data in an enhanced and/or customized format, regardless of the formatting of the stored data.
It is a further example of the present system to provide a programming environment that allows for creation of objects to analyze and format stored data.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system that analyzes and pre-indexes stored data, without altering the data, to accomplish real-time generation of an enhanced and/or customized format presentation of the stored data for display.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide a system for formatting and displaying information that uses a graphical interface and language for controlling the indexing and display of stored data.
The present invention is a system and method for providing flexible access to heterogeneous information from numerous sources. This is accomplished without relocating the original data, by analyzing the data in its existing format and assorted locations, in order to discern the logical structure of the data, in terms of whatever units might be applicable for the specific type of data in question (e.g., paragraphs, sections, articles, chapters, frames, etc.). The result is an object-oriented model of that data structure. The system also allows for customization of the format for displaying the information, once the model has been constructed. The data thus remains in its original location and format, but is presented through the system in a coherent, uniform format.
The resulting object-oriented model, a repository, contains objects, or resources, each in turn containing metadata that points to and describes a unit of the original data. The repository and the resources that comprise it are generated by a program, which itself is automatically created by the system from structure and type specifications previously defined. The type specifications define both the size and format of the subunits of the stored data. The structure specifications define how the subunits are to be grouped together for search, traversal, and presentation purposes. The smallest subunit (e.g., a single line of text, a paragraph, or a section) defined at this stage represents the smallest unit of information that can later be presented separately from other such units. The invention is also comprised of a visual language for inputting the structure specifications and automatically generating the metadata repositories. The system of the present invention also includes various agents for monitoring and maintaining the stored data to ensure that changes to stored data are notified and handled appropriately.
In more detail, the invention provides a system for displaying data from a source location at a display location via electronic networking, comprising: data desired to be displayed at the display location, the data having a predetermined format and accessible via a server at the source location of the data; a type specification particular to the data, the type specification defining both a format of the data and one or more instructions for extracting encapsulation units for the data, each of the encapsulation units defining a portion of the data for displaying at the display location; metadata identifying how to access the data and how to present the data at the display location, the metadata residing at one or more intermediate locations adapted to be in communication with both the source and the display locations; template data for determining formatting of the data or an encapsulated unit thereof to be displayed at the display location; and means for processing the metadata to access and to retrieve the data or an encapsulated portion thereof, and for displaying the data or an encapsulated portion thereof at the display location.
In another embodiment, this invention provides A method for providing data for display at a display location remote from a source location at which the data is stored, the data being provided to the display location via electronic networking, the method comprising: providing data desired to be displayed at the display location in a predetermined format, the data accessible from the source location via a server at the source of the data; specifying, particular to the data, a type specification defining both a format for the data and one or more instructions for extracting one or more encapsulation units of the data to be displayed at the display location; generating metadata, the metadata residing on an intermediate server between the server at the source data location and the display location, the intermediate server adapted to be in communication with the display location, the metadata identifying how to access the data from the server at the data source and how to format the data for presentation at the display location; providing template data for determining the formatting of the data or an encapsulated portion thereof dis
Makower David
Shklar Leon
Adams, Schwartz & Evans P.A.
Information Architects Corporation
Maung Zarni
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