Content supply apparatus and machine readable recording media for recording a program

• US 20010003194A1
• Filed: 11/30/2000
• Published: 06/07/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Inventors: Shimura, Satoshi, Saida, Yoshinori
• Granted Patent: US 6,947,973 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/310
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5681 Pre-fetching or pre-delivering data based on network characteristics

Abstract

Interpose between a portable terminal and a content server, obtain the content demanded by the portable terminal to obtain from the content server and transmit to the portable terminal to avoid useless content prefetching at the gateway server. The divided content supply section 14 transmits the content demanded by the portable terminal 2 to obtain by divided content unit of each information amount that can be displayed by the portable terminal 2. The prefetching section 17 prefetches the other contents referred to from said divided content, by divided content unit transmitted to the portable terminal 2 from the group of content servers 3 and stores in the content hold section 11.

Claims

1. A content supply apparatus, interposed between a portable terminal and a content server, for obtaining content demanded by the portable terminal to obtain and sending to the portable terminal, comprising:

a content hold means for holding the content obtained from the content server;

a divided content supply means for obtaining the content demanded by the portable terminal from said content hold means if the same exists in said means, and from the content server if the same does not exist, and transmitting to the portable terminal by divided content unit of every information amount that can be displayed by the portable terminal; and

a prefetcher means for prefetching the other contents referred from said divided content, by transmitted divided content unit, from the content server, and storing in said content hold means.

2. The content supply apparatus of

claim 1

, comprising:

a link information format conversion section for mutual conversion of URI format link information and ID number format link information; and

wherein, said divided content supply means transmits link information in the divided content to be transmitted to the portable terminal by substituting entirely with ID number format by said link information format conversion section, obtains the corresponding URI by said link information format conversion section, when the portable terminal demands to obtain content in ID number format.

3. The content supply apparatus of

claim 1

, comprising:

a prefetch list creation section for detecting link information to the other contents contained in the divided content transmitted by said divided content supply means to the portable terminal for establishing a prefetch list and delivering to said prefetcher means.

4. The content supply apparatus of

claim 1

, wherein:

said prefetcher means prefetches according to the prefetch list transmitted from the portable terminal.

5. The content supply apparatus of

claim 1

, wherein:

if the content to prefetch is either the content under pay content access restriction, or the content that could not be prefetched due to network trouble or other reason, said prefetcher means stores that message in said content hold means matching off against the concerned content URI, and said content division means, upon the reception of said message during the search of the content demanded by the portable terminal to obtain from said content hold means, transmits the message to the portable terminal.

6. The content supply apparatus of

claim 1

,

2

, 3, 4 or 5, wherein:

said content hold means includes a transmission memory section for holding only contents supplied actually to the portable terminal, a prefetch memory section for holding only prefetched content among the other contents referred from the content held in said transmission memory section, a cache memory section holding the content the portable terminal had obtained in the past.

7. A machine readable recording media recording a program for functioning a computer constituting a content supply apparatus, interposed between a portable terminal and a content server, for obtaining content demanded by the portable terminal to obtain and sending to the portable terminal, as

a content hold means for holding the content obtained from the content server;

a divided content supply means for obtaining the content demanded by the portable terminal from said content hold means if the same exists in said means, and from the content server if the same does not exist, and transmitting to the portable terminal by divided content unit of every information amount that can be displayed by the portable terminal; and

a prefetcher means for prefetching the other contents referred from said divided content, by transmitted divided content unit, from the content server, and storing in said content hold means.