SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SELECTIVELY DISPLAYING WEB PAGE ELEMENTS

• US 20090083661A1
• Filed: 09/26/2007
• Published: 03/26/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Yahoo Assets LLC
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Blinnikka, Tomi, Horowitz, Steven
• Granted Patent: US 8,347,225 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/787
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/00 Handling natural language data speech analysis or synthesis, speech recognition G10L

Abstract

Against this backdrop systems and methods have been developed for displaying content. More specifically, systems and methods have been developed for selectively displaying content corresponding to elements.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

(a) identifying an element of content to be visibly displayed, the element having a first name and a first address;

(b) storing the first name and the first address;

(c) receiving a display request to visibly display the identified element;

(d) in response to receiving the display request, retrieving content associated with the first address, at least a portion of the content comprising the identified element; and

(e) analyzing the content to obtain the identified element.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

(f) displaying the identified element.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein step (f) is performed by a browser program.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein step (f) is performed by a client program.

5. The method of claim 2 wherein step (f) occurs in accordance with stored user preferences.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein step (f) occurs within a defined display region.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein step (f) occurs within a borderless window.

8. The method of claim 6 further comprising:

(g) adjusting at least one property of the display region.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the at least one property adjusts a dimension of the display region.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein the at least one property adjusts the display region'"'"'s opacity.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein steps (a) through (e) are performed at a client.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein step (a) occurs prior to performing step (d).

13. The method of claim 11 wherein step (a) occurs while performing step (d).

14. The method of claim 11 wherein the first name identifies at least one of a logical collection of elements.

15. The method of claim 11 wherein either or both of the first name and the first address are stored on a server.

16. The method of claim 11 wherein the display request identifies either or both of the first name or the first address.

17. The method of claim 11 wherein the first address is a URI.

18. The method of claim 13 wherein the content associated with the URI takes the form of a web page.

19. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

(f) receiving input from a user representing a selection of at least a portion of the content; and

(g) identifying the element based upon the selection.

20. The method of claim 11 wherein one instance of either or both of the first name and the first address of the element are stored on a client.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein a second instance of either or both of the first name and the first address of the element are stored on a server.

22. The method of claim 1 wherein the analyzing of step (e) comprises:

parsing the content to obtain the identified element.

23. The method of claim 1 wherein the analyzing of step (e) comprises:

interacting with a document object model of the content to obtain the identified element.

24. A system comprising:

(a) a identification module that identifies an element of content to be visibly displayed, the element having a first name and a first address;

(b) a storage module that stores the first name and the first address;

(c) a communications module configured to receive a display request to visibly display the identified element, and, in response to receiving the display request, retrieve content associated with the first address, at least a portion of the content comprising the identified element; and

(e) a processor configured to analyze the content to obtain the identified element.

25. A computer readable medium encoding or containing computer executable instructions for performing a method, the method comprising:

(a) identifying an element of content to be visibly displayed, the element having a first name and a first address;

(b) storing the first name and the first address;

(c) receiving a display request to visibly display the identified element;

(d) in response to receiving the display request, retrieving content associated with the first address, at least a portion of the content comprising the identified element; and

(e) analyzing the content to obtain the identified element.