Serving signals

• US 20020052865A1
• Filed: 08/03/2001
• Published: 05/02/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 05/15/1995
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ablaise Limited
• Original Assignee: General Inventions Institute A Incorporated
• Inventors: Ritchie, Andrew M., Bradshaw, Jonathan M.
• Granted Patent: US 6,961,737 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/1085 involving automatic teller machines [ATMs]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99952 Coherency, e.g. same view to multiple users

Abstract

Output signals are served from a serving device to a plurality of browsing devices connected to a network. The output signals represent commands executable by each browsable device so as to display viewable data in accordance with specified page formatting. Requests from browsing clients are identified which contain information relating to the data itself and the display format for the data. The data is read and processed so as to combine a representation of the viewable data with executable instructions. The signals are then supplied to requesting browsing devices, after effectively being assembled as a real time on-line process.

Claims

1. Apparatus for serving output signals from a serving device to a plurality of browsing devices connected to a network, wherein said output signals represent commands executable by each browsing device so as to display viewable data in accordance with a specified page format, comprising:

means for identifying requests from browsing clients that define a request for specified viewable data with commands for displaying said data in a specified format;

means for reading data representing said viewable data;

means for processing said read data so as to combine a representation of said viewable data with executable instructions; and

means for supplying output signals to the requesting browsing device derived from said processed data.

2. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the network is the Internet.

3. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said executable commands are hypertext mark-up language commands.

4. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said viewable data is text data or graphics data.

5. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said viewable data is read from conventional databases.

6. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein viewable data is identified by an index to a database.

7. Apparatus according to claim 6, wherein data retained within a database is modifiable while retaining a specified index.

8. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said means for processing said viewable data includes means for executing predefined locally executable instructions arranged to combine specified database entries with specified formatting instructions.

9. Apparatus according claim 8, wherein said locally executable instructions are indexed and the relationship between the particular set of instructions and a related index is adjustable.

10. Apparatus according to claim 1, including means for adjusting a relationship between a particular request and a particular output string in response to third input data.

11. Apparatus according to claim 10, including means for controlling said third input data in response to user commands.

12. Apparatus according to claim 10, including means for generating third input data in response to a record of previous use made by a user.

14. A method according to claim 13, wherein the network is the Internet.

15. A method according to claim 13, wherein said executable commands are hypertext mark-up language commands.

16. A method according to claim 13, wherein said viewable data is text data or graphics data.

17. A method according claim 13, wherein said viewable data is read from a database.

18. A method according to claim 1, wherein viewable data is identified by an index to a database.

19. A method according to claim 18, wherein data retained within a database is modifiable while retaining a specified index.

20. A method according to claim 13, wherein said step of processing said viewable data includes executed predefined locally executable instructions arranged to combine specified database entries with specified formatting instructions.

13. A method of serving output signals from a serving device to a plurality of browsing devices connected to a network, wherein said output signals represent commands executable by each browsing device so as to display viewable data in accordance with a specified page format, comprising steps of:

identifying requests from browsing clients that define a request for specified viewable data with commands for displaying said data in a specified format;

reading data representing said viewable data;

processing said read data so as to combine a representation of said viewable data with executable instructions; and

supplying output signals to the requesting browsing device derived from said processed data.