Advertisement forwarding storage and retrieval network

• US 7,636,758 B1
• Filed: 07/10/2008
• Issued: 12/22/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/10/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Distributed Media Solutions, LLC (IP Investments Group LLC)
• Original Assignee: Edward Merritt, Gene Fein
• Inventors: Merritt, Edward, Fein, Gene
• Primary Examiner(s): DENNISON, JERRY B
• Application Number:
  US12/170,925
• Publication Number:
  US 20100011084A1
• Time in Patent Office: 530 Days
• Field of Search: 709/251, 709/216, 709/238, 709/212, 710/100
• US Class Current: 709/212
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0635 by changing the path, e.g. traffic rerouting, path reconfiguration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/106 using time related information in packets, e.g. by adding timestamps
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context

Abstract

Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for to advertisement forwarding storage and retrieval network. A method includes, in a network of interconnected computer system nodes, directing advertisement to a computer memory, directing data to a computer memory, continuously forwarding each of the unique data, independent of each other, from one computer memory to another computer memory in the network of interconnected computer system nodes without storing on any physical storage device in the network, continuously forwarding each of the unique advertisements, independent of each other, from one computer memory to another computer memory in the network of interconnected computer system nodes without storing on any physical storage device in the network, and retrieving one of the advertisements in response to an activity.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

in a network of interconnected computer system nodes, directing a plurality of advertisement to a node;

directing a plurality of unique data items to a node;

in response to a request from a source system, continuously forwarding each of the unique data items, independent of each other, among the nodes in the network of interconnected computer system nodes without storing the forwarded data items on any fixed storage medium in the network, the forwarded data items being constantly routed within the network from node to node, the forwarded data items being available for retrieval if a request to retrieve the data items is received;

storing the advertisements by continuously forwarding each of the unique advertisements, independent of each other, among the nodes in the network of interconnected computer system nodes without storing the forwarded advertisements on any fixed storage medium in the network, the forwarded advertisements being constantly routed within the network from node to node; and

retrieving one of the advertisements in response to an activity.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein continuously forwarding further comprises:

detecting a presence of any one of the unique data items or advertisements at a specific node; and

forwarding the one of the unique data items or advertisements to another node in the network of interconnected computer system nodes without storing the forwarded data items on any fixed storage medium.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein forwarding comprises determining an address of a node available to receive the unique data items or advertisement based on one or more factors.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the one or more factors comprise network traffic analysis and available memory.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving a request from the source system to retrieve at least one of the data items being continuously forwarded in the network of interconnected computer system nodes;

retrieving the at least one of the data items from a node in response to the request to retrieve the at least one of data items; and

matching a user of the request to an activity to target specific advertisement to be retrieved.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein retrieving comprises:

matching the data item or advertisement request at a central server using a hash mark representing the data item and advertisement entering a node;

sending a message to a node that is predicted to have the data item or advertisement, the message instructing the node to forward the data item or advertisement to the source system; and

sending a confirmation message to the central server that the data item and advertisement have been forwarded to the source system.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising receiving an acknowledgment from the source system that the requested data item has been received.

8. A network comprising:

a group of interconnected computer system nodes, each node configured to;

in response to a request from a requesting system to store data items or advertisements, receive at least one data item and advertisement and continuously forward the data items and advertisements among the computer system nodes, independent of each other, without storing the forwarded data items and advertisements on any fixed storage medium, the forwarded data items and advertisements being constantly routed from node to node within the group of interconnected computer system nodes; and

in response to an activity of the requesting system, retrieve a particular data item being continuously forwarded among the computer system nodes, along with an advertisement being continuously forwarded among the computer system nodes.

9. The network of claim 8 wherein each node is:

adapted to detect the presence of data items and forward the data items to another node in the group of interconnected computer systems nodes according to a node'"'"'s availability; and

adapted to detect the presence of advertisement and forward the advertisement to another node in the group of interconnected computer systems nodes according to a node'"'"'s availability.

10. The network of claim 9 wherein the node'"'"'s availability is determined according to its volume of network traffic.

11. The network of claim 10 wherein each node encrypts the data item or advertisement.

12. The network of claim 10 wherein the group of nodes comprises a central server to:

match the data item retrieval request using a hash mark representing the data item or advertisement entering a node;

send a message to a node that is predicted to have the data item or advertisement, the message instructing the node to forward the data item or advertisement to the requesting system; and

receive a confirmation message that the data item or advertisement has been forwarded to the requesting system.

13. A tangible computer readable medium embodying instructions for causing a data processing apparatus to perform a method for storing and retrieving data items and advertisements in a network of interconnected computer system nodes, the method comprising:

directing a plurality of advertisement to a node;

directing a plurality of unique data items to a node;

in response to a request from a source system, continuously forwarding each of the unique data items, independent of each other, among the nodes in the network of interconnected computer system nodes without storing the forwarded data items on any fixed storage medium in the network, the forwarded data items being constantly routed within the network from node to node, the forwarded data items being available for retrieval if a request to retrieve the data items is received;

in response to the request from the source system, continuously forwarding each of the unique advertisements, independent of each other, among the nodes in the network of interconnected computer system nodes without storing the forwarded advertisements on any fixed storage medium in the network, the forwarded advertisements being constantly routed within the network from node to node; and

retrieving one of the advertisements in response to an activity.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein continuously forwarding further comprises:

detecting a presence of any one of the unique data items or advertisement at a specific node; and

forwarding the one of the unique data items or advertisement to another node in the network of interconnected computer system nodes without storing the forwarded data item or advertisement on any fixed storage medium.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 14 wherein forwarding comprises determining an address of a node available to receive the unique data item or advertisement based on one or more factors.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 15 wherein the one or more factors comprise network traffic analysis and available memory.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a request from the source system to retrieve at least one of the data items or advertisement being continuously forwarded in the network of interconnected computer system nodes; and

retrieving the at least one of the data items or advertisement from a node in response to the request to retrieve the at least on of the data items or advertisement; and

matching a user of the request to an activity.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 17 wherein retrieving comprises:

matching the data item or advertisement request at a central server using a hash mark representing the at least one data item or advertisement entering a node;

sending a message to a node that is predicted to have the at least one data item or advertisement, the message instructing the node to forward the at least one data item or advertisement to the source system; and

sending a confirmation message to the central server that the at least one data item or advertisement have been forwarded to the source system.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 18 wherein the method further comprises receiving an acknowledgment from the source system that the requested at least one data item has been received.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the advertisement includes any of text, audio, visual, multiple configurations in order to satisfy different systems delivery specifications, or any combination thereof.