Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-01
2004-06-01
Maung, Zarni (Department: 2154)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C709S201000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06745203
ABSTRACT:
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
A portion of the disclosure recited in the specification contains material which is subject to copyright protection. Specifically, a Microfiche Appendix in accordance with 37 CFR Section 1.96 is included that lists source code instructions for a process by which the present invention is practiced in a computer system. The Microfiche Appendix comprises 13 sheets of microfiche containing 377 frames, or pages, of source code. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction of the specification as filed in the Patent and Trademark Office. Otherwise all copyright rights are reserved.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates in general to data processing in networked computers and, more specifically, to an object-oriented approach for handling digital information in large distributed networks such as an Intranet or the Internet.
The evolution of computer systems and computer networks is one of accelerating growth. Individual computer systems are equipped with vast amounts of storage and tremendous processing power. Even as these computing resources have increased, the physical size of the systems has decreased, along with the cost of such systems, so that the number of computer systems has grown dramatically.
Not only has the number of computer systems increased at an astounding rate, but improvements in telecommunications have contributed to making massive worldwide networks such as the Internet a reality. However, these advances in computer systems and computer network technology make an overwhelming amount of information available. So much so that it is difficult for a user to extract desired information from the network or to be able to efficiently use the network to accomplish many tasks. Although the Internet has made it very easy to both publish information as well as access it through content servers and browsers, respectively, this opportunity has given rise to thousands of information publishers and millions of information consumers.
This phenomenal growth is making it increasingly difficult for an information consumer to hook up with the publishers that are of interest. A second problem is that the continuous exchange of information in the form of data or algorithms between the myriad types of computer systems, or platforms, which are foreign to one another and mutually incompatible, means that a user of the Internet needs to be aware of compatibility issues such as which types of applications run on which platform, what data formats can be used with which applications, etc. A third problem with the Internet is that, although computer systems have acquired resources to be able to run very large, resource-intensive application programs, this type of “fat” resident application, or client, on a user's machine does not fit today's Internet paradigm where restricted bandwidth makes it impractical to transfer large amounts of data or programs. Also, the shear volume of information and number of users means that stored space on the various server computers making up the Internet, and used to perform routing of information on the Internet, is at a premium.
Brute-force “keyword” search engines already prove incapable of effectively solving the problems of the Internet. A whole plethora of “push” technologies is emerging that is attempting to provide solutions to this problem within some spectrums. A few “publish-subscribe” solutions exist, but these demand a fair amount of infrastructure at both the publisher and consumer ends. Each of the shortcomings of these approaches is discussed in turn.
Keyword Search
An example of the inefficient data search and retrieval of the popular keyword search engines is illustrated by the following example of performing a simple search to locate job candidates.
Assume, as was done in an actual test case, that the user of a computer system on the Internet wants to locate and hire computer programmers. Using traditional Internet search technology, the user might go to a website such as AltaVista, Yahoo!, HotBot, etc., and enter a search query for “programmer available.” This search on AltaVista in February 1998, produced 166 documents matching the query. However, the vast majority of these documents are useless in accomplishing the goal of finding a job candidate. For example, many of the documents are outdated. Other of the documents merely use the phrase “programmer available” in ways other than to identify an actual job candidate. Some of the documents are from “dead” links which no longer exist and are inaccessible. Many of the documents were duplicate documents resulting from peculiarities in the way the database is compiled and maintained.
Many of the documents in the search results would not be useful even if they identified an available programmer candidate. This is because the candidates are from different places in the world and many of the documents are old, meaning the programmers are probably not available anymore or have moved. Of course, the search can be refined by adding additional keywords, such as the specific type of programming language skill desired, region, restricting the documents to a specific timeframe, etc. However, since the only tool available to the user to refine the search is to add keywords, or to place relational conditions on the keywords, a second full-text search of the entirety of documents on the Internet would yield many of the same problems as in the previous search, along with new problems introduced by unpredictable uses of the additional or modified text phrases in the free-form format of documents on the Internet.
Another limitation with the full-text search engines available on the Internet today is that much of the information on the Internet exists in “dynamic” web pages which are created in response to specific one-time requests or actions by human users or automated signals. Even the so-called “static” web pages are updated frequently, or are left on the Internet long after they cease to be supported or cease to be valid or relevant. Since the search engines compile a database based on “robots” or “spiders” visiting sites on the Internet at repeated time intervals many of their results are unrepeatable or outdated and invalid. Also, the spiders are not able to discover all possible web pages such as pages that might be included in a resume database that is not published in the form of one web page per resume. Still further problems exist with keyword search engines in that use of the text language is not fully standardized. An example of this is that many people use the spelling “programers” instead of “programmers” with two ‘m’s.
The second problem with the Internet, that of compatibility issues between platforms, programs and data types, is encountered by a user of today's Internet whenever a user tries to obtain software, and sometimes data, from the Internet. Although the Internet has provided a wealth of commercial (and free) software, utilities, tools, etc., much of this software requires a great deal of effort the part of the user to get it running correctly, or is of little or no value because of incompatibility problems that must be solved at the user's time and expense.
For example, when a user downloads a piece of software, they must know about their computer, operating system, compression/decompression utility required, etc. in order to determine whether the software being downloaded is going to be usable in the first place. Keeping track of proper versions of the software and utilities further complicates matters. This is especially true when the software obtained is designed to work with data of a certain type, such as where the software is used to access multimedia files of a certain provider's format, is a new driver for hardware from a specific manufacturer, etc. This makes it difficult for would-be manufacturers of third party “value-added” utilities to produce software that can be used with other software, data or hardware made by another manufacture. Thus, although today's Internet is successful in
Garg Suneet
Javangula Pradeep
Katiyar Dinesh
Bingham & McCutchen LLP
Chang Jung-won
E.piphany, Inc.
Marino Fabio E.
Maung Zarni
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