Automatic software downloading from a computer network
First Claim
1. A method of automatically downloading software on a local device from one or more computers, the local device and the one or more computers being connected to a computer network, the method comprising:
- encountering an invocation of the software, wherein the invocation comprises an identity of the software and a version indication of the software; and
responsive to encountering an invocation of software, downloading the software from the one or more remote computers according to the identity and version indication.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
Methods and systems automatically download computer software components from a computer network like the Internet or an intranet. The methods and systems can be used to provide dynamic or interactive multimedia components in HTML documents with HTML <OBJECT> tags. The HTML <OBJECT> tags can contain parameters including uniform resource locators (URLs) which reference dynamic or interactive multimedia components on remote computers. Network browsers and other applications can obtain computer software components from a computer network like the Internet or an intranet in a uniform, portable, architecture-neutral, robust manner. The computer software components obtained can be used to provide a variety of new multimedia functionality to an application program.
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Citations
22 Claims
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1. A method of automatically downloading software on a local device from one or more computers, the local device and the one or more computers being connected to a computer network, the method comprising:
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encountering an invocation of the software, wherein the invocation comprises an identity of the software and a version indication of the software; and
responsive to encountering an invocation of software, downloading the software from the one or more remote computers according to the identity and version indication. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A method of invoking software, the method comprising:
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encountering an invocation of the software, wherein the invocation comprises an identity of the software and a version indication of the software;
responsive to encountering an invocation of software, determining whether there is a version of the software existing on a local device that satisfies the version indication; and
responsive to determining that there is a version of the software existing on the local device that satisfies the version indication, invoking the version of the software existing on the local device that satisfies the version indication.
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20. In a computer-readable medium, an invocation of software comprising:
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an identity of the software; and
a version indicator for the software;
whereby, when encountered by a local device, the invocation initiates execution of a version of the software according to the version indicator, and, if a version of the software according to the version indicator is not available on the local device, downloading the software to the local device prior to execution. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22)
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Specification