Content supply apparatus for transmitting the content to a portable terminal in transmitted divided units and prefetching other contents from the transmitted divided units

• US 6,947,973 B2
• Filed: 11/30/2000
• Issued: 09/20/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Inventors: Shimura, Satoshi, Saida, Yoshinori
• Primary Examiner(s): EL HADY, NABIL M
• Application Number:
  US09/725,894
• Publication Number:
  US 20010003194A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,755 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/217, 709/219, 709/200
• US Class Current: 709/217
• 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

A content supply apparatus is interposed between a portable terminal and a content server, to obtain content demanded by the portable terminal and transmit the obtained content to the portable terminal. A content holding section holds content obtained from the content server. A content supply section obtains the demanded content from the content holding section if the demanded content is there, or from the content server, and transmits the demanded content to the portable terminal. In a preferred embodiment, the content supply section transmits the content in divided content units of a maximum information amount that can be displayed by the portable terminal. In another embodiment, a prefetching section prefetches other content, referred from the transmitted divided content units, and stores the prefetched content in the content holding section.

Claims

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

a content holding section for holding content obtained from the content server;

a divided content supply section for obtaining the demanded content from said content holding section if the demanded content exists in said content holding section, and obtaining the demanded content from the content server if the demanded content does not exist in said content holding section, and for transmitting the obtained content to the portable terminal in divided content units of a maximum information amount that can be displayed by the portable terminal; and

a prefetcher section for prefetching other contents, referred from the transmitted divided content units, from the content server, and storing the prefetched content in said content holding section,

wherein said content holding section includes a transmission memory section for holding contents supplied to the portable terminal, a prefetch memory section for holding prefetched content, and a cache memory section for holding content the portable terminal had obtained previously.

2. The content supply apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

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

wherein said divided content supply section transmits link information in the transmitted divided content units to the portable terminal by substituting an ID number format provided by said link information format conversion section for a corresponding URI when the portable terminal demands use of the ID number format.

3. The content supply apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a prefetch list creation section for detecting link information to the other contents contained in the transmitted divided content units, and for establishing a prefetch list and delivering the established prefetch list to said prefetcher section.

4. The content supply apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

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

5. The content supply apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

if the content to be prefetched is either content under pay content access restriction, or content that could not be prefetched due to network trouble or other reason, said prefetcher section stores a message in said content holding section matched against the concerned content URI, and said divided content supply section receives the stored message during a search for the content demanded by the portable terminal and transmits the received message to the portable terminal.