System and a process for specifying a location on a network

• US 6,564,254 B1
• Filed: 10/04/1999
• Issued: 05/13/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 11/04/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: SFD Company Limited
• Original Assignee: TriIs, Inc.
• Inventors: Nakajima, Ichiro, Shoji, Wataru, Tabuchi, Daisuke, Gramlich, Gabriele
• Primary Examiner(s): Dinn, Dung C.
• Assistant Examiner(s): LE, HIEU C
• Application Number:
  US09/412,446
• Time in Patent Office: 1,317 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/224, 709/245, 709/203, 709/217, 707/3, 707/10, 707/100-101, 707/104.1, 707/513, 345/168-172, 345/761, 717/174, 717/176
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

When a user selects an arbitrary symbol 75 (word, phrase, sentence, graphic, image, etc.) from an arbitrary application 3 on a client computer 3, and copies this symbol 75 to a clipboard 79, a linker 23, being a terminate-and-stay-resident-type process, automatically captures that symbol 81 from the clipboard 79. Similarly, when a user types at a keyboard from an arbitrary application 207, those typed characters are first passed to an input method editor 201, where they are temporarily stored within a buffer 211, and when the user enters a prescribed “okay” key sequence the characters within that buffer 211 are converted as necessary and passed to the application 207, but if the user enters a prescribed “link” key sequence, a character string determining component 213 of the input method editor 201 passes the characters within the buffer 211 to a linker 209. In either case, the linker 23 sends the captured symbol to a URL server 5. The URL server 5 possesses a database 15, accumulated within which there are sets of symbols 105A, 105B, . . . and URLs 107A, 107B, . . . corresponding thereto, searches the database 15 and retrieves therefrom a URL corresponding to the received symbol 103, and returns that retrieved URL 109 to the linker 23. The linker 23 launches a WWW browser 21 and passes the URL 95 received from the server 5 to the WWW browser 21.

Claims

1. A system for specifying a location on a communications network for use by a network application installed in a computer, at least one of said network and said computer having a database that accumulates a plurality of sets of symbols and location information associated thereto, said system comprising:

a symbol capturer that captures a symbol arbitrarily specified by a user on a display of the man-machine interface of said computer;

a search request generator that generates a search request for a location information associated to said symbol which is captured by said symbol capturer; and

a search request sender that sends said search request to said network application, thereby causing said network application to send said search request to said database and to receive from said database said location information associated to said symbol which is captured by said symbol capturer;

wherein;

said computer has a keyboard-type input apparatus including a conversion key and an okay key, and an input method editor that has a buffer for temporarily retaining a character or a character string which is entered from said keyboard-type input apparatus, that performs a conversion of said character or character string retained in said buffer in response to a user operation on said conversion key, and that transfers said character or character string retained in said buffer to an application being active on said display of said man-machine interface in response to a user operation on said okay key,

said symbol capturer is able to capture a character or a character string retained in said buffer of said input method editor while an application other than said network application is active on said display of said man-machine interface.

2. A system for specifying a location on a communications network for use by a network application installed in a computer, at least one of said network and said computer having a database that accumulates a plurality of sets of symbols and location information associated thereto, said computer having:

a keyboard-type input apparatus including a conversion key and an okay key, and

an input method editor that has a buffer for temporarily retaining a character or a character string which is entered from said keyboard-type input apparatus, that performs a conversion of said character or character string retained in said buffer in response to a user operation on said conversion key, and that transfers said character or character string retained in said buffer to an application being active on a display of the man-machine interface of said computer in response to a user operation on said okay key,

said system comprising;

a character capturer that captures a character or a character string retained in said buffer of said input method editor while an application other than said network application is active on said display of said man-machine interface; and

a search requester that generates a search request for a location information associated to said symbol captured by said character capturer, and that employs said search request so that said location information associated to said symbol captured is retrieved from said database and sent to said network application.

3. A system according to claim 2 wherein said search requester sends said search request to said database, receives said location information retrieved from said database, and sends said location information received to said network application.

4. A system according to claim 2 wherein said search requester sends said search request to said network application, thereby causing said network application to send said search request to said database and to receive said location information retrieved from said database.

5. A process carried out by a computer for specifying a location on a communications network for use by a network application installed in said computer, at least one of said network and said computer having a database that accumulates a plurality of sets of symbols and location information associated thereto, said computer having:

a keyboard-type input apparatus including a conversion key and an okay key, and

an input method editor that has a buffer for temporarily retaining a character or a character string which is entered from said keyboard-type input apparatus, that performs a conversion of said character or character string retained in said buffer in response to a user operation on said conversion key, and that transfers said character or character string retained in said buffer to an application being active on a display of the man-machine interface of said computer in response to a user operation on said okay key,

said process comprising the steps of;

capturing a character or a character string retained in said buffer of said input method editor while an application other than said network application is active on said display of said man-machine interface;

generating a search request for a location information associated to said symbol captured by said step of capturing; and

employing said search request so that said location information associated to said, symbol captured is retrieved from said database and sent to said network application.

6. A computer-readable recording medium embodied within which there is a computer program for causing a computer to carry out a process for specifying a location on a communications network for use by a network application installed in said computer, at least one of said network and said computer having a database that accumulates a plurality of sets of symbols and location information associated thereto, said computer having:

a keyboard-type input apparatus including a conversion key and an okay key, and

an input method editor that has a buffer for temporarily retaining a character or a character string which is entered from said keyboard-type input apparatus, that performs a conversion of said character or character string retained in said buffer in response to a user operation on said conversion key, and that transfers said character or character string retained in said buffer to an application being active on a display of the man-machine interface of said computer in response to a user operation on said okay key,

said computer program comprising;

a program code segment for executing a step of capturing a character or a character string retained in said buffer of said input method editor while an application other than said network application is active on said display of said man-machine interface;

a program code segment for executing a step of generating a search request for a location information associated to said symbol captured by said step of capturing; and

a program code segment for executing a step of employing said search request so that said location information associated to said symbol captured is retrieved from said database and sent to said network application.

7. A system for specifying a location on a communications network for use by a network application installed in a computer, said computer having:

a keyboard-type input apparatus including a conversion key and an okay key, and

an input method editor that has a buffer for temporarily retaining a character or a character string which is entered from said keyboard-type input apparatus, that performs a conversion of said character or character string retained in said buffer in response to a user operation on said conversion key, and that transfers said character or character string retainedin said buffer to an application being active on a display of the man-machine interface of said computer in response to a user operation on said okay key,

said system comprising;

a character capturer that captures a character string retained in said buffer of said input method editor while an application other than said network application is active on said display of said man-machine interface;

a location character string extractor that extracts a location character string representing a location on said network from said character string captured by said character capturer; and

a location director that specifies said location character string for use by said network application, to cause said network application to execute communications involving said location represented by said location character string.

8. A system according to claim 7 wherein said communications network is a telephone network, said location character string is a telephone number, and said network application is an application for dialing a telephone.

9. A system according to claim 7 further comprising an action executioner that converts a character string captured by said character capturer into action information previously associated to said character string captured, and that executes an action according to said action information.

10. A system according to claim 9 wherein said action executioner has a database that accumulates a plurality of sets of character strings and action information associated thereto, and acquires from said database said action information associated to said character string captured.

11. A system according to claim 9 wherein:

said network has a database that accumulates a plurality of sets of character strings and action information associated thereto; and

said action executioner issues to said database a search request for said location information associated to said character string captured, and receives from said database said action information associated to said character string captured.

12. A process carried out by a computer for specifying a location on a communications network for use by a network application installed in said computer, said computer having:

a keyboard-type input apparatus including a conversion key and an okay key, and

an input method editor that has a buffer for temporarily retaining a character or a character string which is entered from said keyboard-type input apparatus, that performs a conversion of said character or character string retained in said buffer in response to a user operation on said conversion key, and that transfers said character or character string retained in said buffer to an application being active on a display of the man-machine interface of said computer in response to a user operation on said okay key,

said process comprising the steps of;

capturing a character string retained in said buffer of said input method editor while an application other than said network application is active on said display of said man-machine interface;

extracting a location character string representing a location on said network from said character string captured by said step of capturing; and

specifying said location character string for use by said network application, to cause said network application to execute communications involving said location represented by said location character string.

13. A computer-readable recording medium on which there is recorded a computer program for causing a computer to execute a process for specifying a location on a communications network for use by a network application installed in said computer, said computer having:

a keyboard-type input apparatus including a conversion key and an okay key, and

an input method editor that has a buffer for temporarily retaining a character or a character string which is entered from said keyboard-type input apparatus, that performs a conversion of said character or character string retained in said buffer in response to a user operation on said conversion key, and that transfers said character or character string retained in said buffer to an application being active on a display of the man-machine interface of said computer in response to a user operation on said okay key,

said computer program comprising;

a program code segment for executing a step of capturing a character string retained in said buffer of said input method editor while an application other than said network application is active on said display of said man-machine interface;

a program code segment for executing a step of extracting a location character string representing a location on said network from said character string captured by said step of capturing; and

a program code segment for executing a step of specifying said location character string for use by said network application, to cause said network application to execute communications involving said location represented by said location character string.