Technique for storing data information within a network

Details Technique for storing data information within a network Technique for storing data information within a network

1998-12-03

2001-04-17

Amsbury, Wayne (Department: 2672)

Data processing: database and file management or data structures

Database design

Data structure types

C707S793000, C707S793000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06219671

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to the field of multimedia and, more particularly, to a technique for storing data information within a network.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
There are a large number of organizations that presently have substantial amounts of audio, video, and image content in analog form. Many of these organizations are currently moving toward putting such multimedia content into digital form in order to save costs in the areas of data storage and retrieval. That is, similar to other types of data, multimedia content can be easily stored on and retrieved from relatively inexpensive digital storage devices.
The migration of multimedia content from analog form to digital form also provides an organization with the ability to store, search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content from distributed sites. That is, an organization having a number of distributed offices can store, search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content from a centralized storage facility over a proprietary intranet computer network such as, for examples a local area network (LAN), or a public internet computer network such as, for example, the world wide web.
Furthermore, the multimedia content itself may be distributed. That is, an organization that is global in nature may have a number of distributed permanent archival storage locations where digitized multimedia content is permanently stored, or a number of distributed temporary storage locations where digitized multimedia content that is associated with work in progress is temporarily stored. Similar to above, such an organization could also store, search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content from the distributed storage locations over a proprietary intranet computer network or a public internet computer network.
Additionally, an organization may want other entities located outside of the organization to be able to search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content stored and maintained within the organization. For example, an organization may want to sell multimedia content to an outside entity, which may then use the purchased multimedia content for some purpose such as, for example, t news broadcast. Similar to above, the outside entity could search, browse, and retrieve digitized multimedia content from a storage facility within the organization over a proprietary intranet computer network or a public internet computer network.
However, despite the above-described benefits associated with digitized multimedia content, organizations presently have little or no means of searching within multimedia content, organizing information about multimedia content, and delivering multimedia content in a ubiquitous manner. That is, there are presently little or no means for searching inside streams of multimedia content e.g., audio/video streams), adding meta-information to multimedia content (i.e., annotating multimedia content) for purposes of indexing within multimedia content, and providing universal access to indexed multimedia content over a variety of connection speeds and on a variety of client platforms. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a technique for organizing distributed multimedia content and for searching, browsing, and retrieving such organized distributed multimedia content in an efficient and cost-effective manner so as to overcome the above-described shortcomings of the prior art.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
The primary object of the present invention is to provide a technique for storing data information within a network.
According to the present invention, a technique for storing data information in a network having a plurality of network stations is provided. The network may be of any type, may be public or private, and is preferably at least part of an internet or an intranet. The data can be, for example, audio or video data or another type of data. For example, the data could be all or a part of the audio and/or video data within a full-length film.
The technique can be realized by receiving, at a first of the plurality of network stations from a second of the plurality of network stations, an address identifier corresponding to a location of a representation of data at a third of the plurality of network stations. The first network station can include, for example, a network server for controlling network communications such as, for example, HTTP messages, to and from the first network station. The first network station can also include, for example, a database for storing the address identifier in association with a data identifier. In one particular embodiment, the database could be an object database, and the data identifier could identify an object corresponding to the data in the object database. Of course, the first network station is not limited in this regard. For example, the address identifier could be stored in association with the data identifier elsewhere in the network.
The second network station can include, for example, a data encoder for generating the representation of data. The second network station could then direct that the representation of data be stored at the third network station. However, the second network station is not limited in this regard. For example, the second network station may merely have knowledge of where the representation of data is located. In any event, the representation of data can be of virtually any type and in virtually any form such as, for example, an analog or digital representation of an audio or video sequence.
The third network station includes some type of storage device for storing the representation of data at a location which is identified by the address identifier. The address identifier can be virtually any type of indication of the location of the representation of data at the third network station. For example, the address identifier could be a universal resource locator (URL) if the network is the Internet. The third network station beneficially includes a database for storing the representation of data, and the address identifier might advantageously be an URL identifying the location of the representation of data within the database of the third network station, and also within the network. Typically, the representation of data is directly accessible by referring to the address identifier in the third network station although this need not always be the case.
In one aspect of the present invention, a request to create the data identifier is received at the first network station. The data identifier is then created and transmitted from the first network station. Preferably, the first network station includes a processor for creating the data identifier. As before, the first network station could include an object database, and the data identifier could identify an object corresponding to the data in the object database. However, the present invention is not limited in this regard. For example, a processor located at another network station could create the data identifier. Preferably, the request is received from the second network station, although other network stations may also be involved. Accordingly, the data identifier is preferably also transmitted to the second network station.
In another aspect of the present invention, the address identifier is a first address identifier, the location is a first location, the representation of data is a first representation of data, the data identifier is a first data identifier, and a second address identifier is received at the first network station. The second address identifier corresponds to a second location of a second representation of data at the third network station. Similar to the first address identifier, the second address identifier can be virtually any type of indication of the location of the second representation of data at the third network station. For example, the second address identifier could be a universal resource locator (URL) if the network is the Internet. Preferably, the second address identifier is rec

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