Peer-to-peer content broadcast transfer mechanism
First Claim
1. A method for transferring a file between nodes in a peer-to-peer network having a plurality of nodes including an originating node, at least one recipient node, and a neighboring node, wherein the recipient node has a direct peer-to-peer connection to the neighboring node and an indirect peer-to-peer connection to the originating node, the method comprising:
- receiving at the recipient node metadata that has been transmitted by the originating node and that corresponds to a file possessed by the originating node;
receiving at the recipient node from the neighboring node a notification that the neighboring node has retrieved the file possessed by the originating node; and
determining at the recipient node whether to retrieve the file possessed by the originating node from the neighboring node based on the metadata.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A technique for efficiently transferring files in a peer-to-peer network promotes substantially real-time file sharing over the network. Nodes of the network may serve as both clients and servers, such that the file transfer burden in the network is equitably distributed across the nodes of the network, generally ensuring that the file dissemination process is executed as quickly as possible. In an embodiment, each node that has or receives a file advertises possession of the file so that other nodes may obtain the file therefrom. In an embodiment, a node may simultaneously receive a file via download from a particular node and serve that same file via upload to another node. Within this embodiment, a generation identifier is preferably associated with each copy of the file to prevent two nodes, each having only part of a file, from attempting to retrieve the remainder of the file from each other.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method for transferring a file between nodes in a peer-to-peer network having a plurality of nodes including an originating node, at least one recipient node, and a neighboring node, wherein the recipient node has a direct peer-to-peer connection to the neighboring node and an indirect peer-to-peer connection to the originating node, the method comprising:
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receiving at the recipient node metadata that has been transmitted by the originating node and that corresponds to a file possessed by the originating node;
receiving at the recipient node from the neighboring node a notification that the neighboring node has retrieved the file possessed by the originating node; and
determining at the recipient node whether to retrieve the file possessed by the originating node from the neighboring node based on the metadata. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 17)
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12. A method for transferring files between nodes in a peer-to-peer network having a plurality of nodes including an originating node, at least one recipient node, and first and second neighboring nodes, wherein the recipient node has a direct peer-to-peer connection to the first and second neighboring nodes and an indirect peer-to-peer connection to the originating node, the method comprising:
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receiving at the recipient node from the first neighboring node a notification that the first neighboring node can supply a first file, wherein the recipient node possesses first metadata associated with the first file, the first metadata comprising a first priority;
receiving at the recipient node a request from the second neighboring node to upload a second file from the recipient node to the second neighboring node, wherein the recipient node possesses second metadata associated with the second file, the second metadata comprising a second priority;
determining which of the first and second priorities corresponds to a higher priority level; and
retrieving the first file from the first neighboring node if the first priority corresponds to a higher priority level than the second priority, and otherwise uploading the second file to the second neighboring node. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 18)
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19. A method for transferring files between nodes in a peer-to-peer network having a plurality of nodes including a recipient node and first and second neighboring nodes, wherein the recipient node has a direct peer-to-peer connection to the first and second neighboring nodes, the method comprising:
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receiving at the recipient node from a supplying node a portion of a desired file having a first generation identifier and assigning to the portion of the desired file a second generation identifier that is greater than the first generation identifier;
receiving at the recipient node from the first neighboring node a first notification that the first neighboring node can supply the desired file, wherein the first notification comprises a first neighbor copy generation identifier;
receiving at the recipient node from the second neighboring node a second notification that the second neighboring node can supply the desired file, wherein the second notification comprises a second neighbor copy generation identifier; and
determining which of the first neighboring node and the second neighboring node to retrieve a remaining portion of the desired file from based on the first and second neighbor copy generation identifiers. - View Dependent Claims (20)
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Specification