Engine for processing content rules associated with locations in a page

• US 9,178,793 B1
• Filed: 09/29/2006
• Issued: 11/03/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Marlow, Keith Anthony
• Primary Examiner(s): Donabed, Ninos
• Application Number:
  US11/537,444
• Time in Patent Office: 3,322 Days
• Field of Search: 709/219, 709/223, 370/216, 455/73
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/16 Arrangements for providing special services to substations
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2557 Translation policies or rules
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0227 Filtering policies mail message filtering H04L51/212
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information

Abstract

A device, system, and method are directed towards enabling a network application to process and respond to requests from client devices. A rules engine receives a page, evaluates a set of rules, and performs actions based on the rules. Actions may modify the page or perform other actions affecting the environment. A rules engine may also process rules prior to processing pages, in order to optimize subsequent evaluation of the rules.

Claims

1. A network device comprising:

a transceiver to send and receive data over the network; and

a processor that is operative to perform actions including;

predetermining a set of rules for performing one or more corresponding tests on an environment associated with a client device, the environment comprising at least a location of the client device, the client device'"'"'s location is used for testing in accordance with a number of rules of the set;

receiving a page from a network application, the page comprising at least one page element;

for each page element, evaluating a test that is performed for at least one of the predetermined set of rules corresponding to the page element and selectively modifying the page element based on the evaluation of the test for the at least one corresponding predetermined rule; and

if a plurality of predetermined rules having equivalent priority correspond to the page element, then at least the number of terms in the test are employed to determine the priority for evaluating each of the plurality of predetermined rules, wherein each predetermined rule having more than one device realm property is organized for retrieval based at least on retrieval cost;

wherein validating each rule includes checking a realm dictionary for a description of information that the rule can be tested against, checking an action dictionary for a description of possible actions that the rule specifies, generating optimized rules based on the checking of the realm dictionary and the action dictionary, and generating a rules file with the optimized rules in a position-independent format.

2. The network device of claim 1, wherein evaluating at least one predetermined rule comprises:

evaluating a first rule test of the at least one predetermined rule; and

selectively evaluating a second rule test based on the evaluation of the first rule test.

3. The network device of claim 1, wherein evaluating at least one predetermined rule comprises:

evaluating a first rule test of the at least one predetermined rule; and

selectively evaluating a second rule test based on the evaluation of the first rule test and a cost of the second rule test.

4. The network device of claim 1, wherein modifying the page element comprises:

retrieving a string at a location specified by the at least one predetermined rule; and

inserting the string in the page at a position corresponding to the page element.

5. The network device of claim 4, wherein retrieving the string comprises performing a retrieval action specified by the at least one predetermined rule.

6. The network device of claim 1, wherein the at least one page element includes a first page element, and wherein evaluating a predetermined rule corresponding to the first page element comprises performing a test of at least one property selected from a group consisting of a device realm property, a gateway realm property, a localization realm property, a markup realm property, or a user realm property.

7. The network device of claim 1, wherein the at least one page element includes a first page element, and wherein evaluating a predetermined rule corresponding to the first page element comprises performing a test of at least two properties selected from a group consisting of a device realm property, a gateway realm property copy a markup realm property or a user realm property.

8. The network device of claim 1, wherein the at least one page element includes a first page element, and wherein evaluating a predetermined rule corresponding to the first page element comprises performing a test of data pertaining to a user session associated with a client device.

9. The network device of claim 1, wherein the at least one page element includes a first page element, and wherein evaluating a predetermined rule corresponding to the first page element comprises performing a test of at least two properties selected from a group consisting of a device location, a date, a screen characteristic of the client device, or a user preference.

10. The network device of claim 1, wherein each rule test of the at least one predetermined rule comprises a test of an environmental property and an action to be selectively performed based on the test, and wherein the action comprises at least one action selected from a group consisting of retrieving a string to be inserted in the page, retrieving a string having at least one nested page element having at least one associated predetermined rule, sending a request to a remote device, sending a message to the client device, sending a message to a remote device other than the client device, or modifying a user preference associated with the client device.

11. A system comprising:

a server computer comprising a processor and a storage medium for tangibly storing thereon program logic for execution by the processor, the stored program logic comprising;

predetermining logic executed by the processor for predetermining a set of rules for performing one or more corresponding tests on an environment associated with a client device, the environment comprising at least a location of the client device, the client device'"'"'s location is used for testing in accordance with a number of rules of the set;

receiving logic executed by the processor for receiving, by a network application, a request for a page from a client device;

in response to receiving the request for the page from the client device, retrieving logic executed by the processor for retrieving, by the network application from each of a number of web services, response data to be included in the page;

evaluating logic executed by the processor for evaluating, by the network application for each response data, a test that is performed for at least one of the predetermined set of rules corresponding to the response data and selectively modifying the response data based on the evaluation of the test for the at least one corresponding predetermined rule;

if the plurality of predetermined rules having equivalent priority correspond to the response data, then at least the number of terms in the test are employed to determine the priority for evaluating each of the plurality of predetermined rules, wherein each predetermined rule having more than one device realm property is organized for retrieval based at least on retrieval cost;

generating logic executed by the processor for generating, by the network application, the page based on the selectively modified response data; and

making logic executed by the processor for making, by the network application, the page available for sending to the client device;

wherein validating each rule includes checking a realm dictionary for a description of information that the rule can be tested against, checking an action dictionary for a description of possible actions that the rule specifies, generating optimized rules based on the checking of the realm dictionary and the action dictionary, and generating a rules file with the optimized rules in a position-independent format.

12. The system of claim 11, the stored program logic further comprising:

transmitting logic executed by the processor for transmitting, by the network application, a web service request to the number of web services; and

receiving logic executed by the processor for receiving, in response to the web service request, the response data.

13. A method comprising:

predetermining, by at least one server device, a set of rules for performing one or more corresponding tests on an environment associated with a client device, the environment comprising at least a location of the client device, the client device'"'"'s location is used for testing in accordance with a number of rules of the set;

receiving an input page;

selectively evaluating each predetermined rule of the predetermined rule set, based on the input page, and selectively modifying the input page, based on each performed test that corresponds to each evaluated predetermined rule, wherein each predetermined rule of the predetermined rule set comprises a test of at least one environmental property and a corresponding action;

if a plurality of predetermined rules having equivalent priority correspond to the input page, then at least the number of terms in the test are employed to determine the priority for evaluating each of the plurality of predetermined rules, wherein each predetermined rule having more than one device realm property is organized for retrieval based at least on retrieval cost; and

forwarding the modified input page to the client device;

wherein validating each rule includes checking a realm dictionary for a description of information that the rule can be tested against, checking an action dictionary for a description of possible actions that the rule specifies, generating optimized rules based on the checking of the realm dictionary and the action dictionary, and generating a rules file with the optimized rules in a position-independent format.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the predetermined rule set comprises a first predetermined rule and a second predetermined rule, and wherein the input page comprises at least two elements, further comprising:

determining an ordering of evaluating the first predetermined rule and the second predetermined rule based on an ordering of the at least two elements in the input page.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the predetermined rules set comprises a first predetermined rule and a second predetermined rule, and wherein the input page comprises at least two elements, further comprising:

determining an ordering of evaluating the first predetermined rule and the second predetermined rule based on at least one priority factor selected from a group consisting of a cost of each rule, or a number of logical terms and each predetermined rule.

16. A system comprising;

at least one network device including a processor and a storage medium for tangibly storing thereon program logic for execution by the processor, the stored program logic comprising;

predetermining logic executable by the processor for predetermining a set of rules, each predetermined rule specifying actions to be selectively taken based on a corresponding test that is performed to determine at least one attribute of a client device, the at least one attribute comprising a location of the client device, the client device'"'"'s location is used for testing in accordance with a number of rules of the set;

rule engine logic executable by the processor for processing and modifying an input text received from the network application, the rule engine logic further comprising logic executable by the processor for evaluating, a performance of at least one test that corresponds to at least one of the set of predetermined rules to generate an output text for forwarding to the client device, wherein the output text is based on the modified input text, and based on at least one attribute determined by the evaluation of the corresponding test performed for the client device, and wherein the input text is independent of said attribute; and

if a plurality of predetermined rules having equivalent priority correspond to the input text, then at least the number of terms in the test are employed to determine the priority for evaluating each of the plurality of predetermined rules, wherein each predetermined rule having more than one device realm property is organized for retrieval based at least on retrieval cost;

wherein validating each rule includes checking a realm dictionary for a description of information that the rule can be tested against, checking an action dictionary for a description of possible actions that the rule specifies, generating optimized rules based on the checking of the realm dictionary and the action dictionary, and generating a rules file with the optimized rules in a position-independent format.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the attributes comprise at least two attributes selected from the group consisting of specifications of the client device, identity of a user, identify of network carrier associated with the client device, markup language supported by the client device, and current date.

18. The system of claim 16, the stored program logic further comprising rules processor logic executable by the processor for validating and translating rules for use by the rule engine.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the set of predetermined rules comprises a first predetermined role associated with a first advertisement reference and a second predetermined rules associated with a second advertisement reference, and wherein the second advertisement reference is selectively inserted in the input text based on an evaluation of the first predetermined rule.

20. The system of claim 16, further comprising:

second rule engine logic executable by the processor for processing a second set of predetermined rules to generate an application output text for sending to a number of client devices, each predetermined rule of the second set of predetermined rules specifying actions to be selectively taken based on a corresponding specified test.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the output text is forwarded to the first instance of the rule engine for processing prior to being forwarded to the client device.