Method of background downloading of information from a computer network

• US 6,769,019 B2
• Filed: 12/10/1997
• Issued: 07/27/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 12/10/1997
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Consenda, Inc., Supermedia Networks, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Consenda, Inc.
• Inventors: Ferguson, Xavier
• Primary Examiner(s): Dinh, Dung C.
• Application Number:
  US08/988,347
• Publication Number:
  US 20020178232A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,421 Days
• Field of Search: 709/201, 709/203, 709/219, 709/223, 709/228, 709/229, 345/748, 345/760, 705/14
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/289 Intermediate processing functionally located close to the data consumer application, e.g. in same machine, in same home or in same sub-network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 using third party service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5681 Pre-fetching or pre-delivering data based on network characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Information is conventionally downloaded from a computer network to a computer operated, by a user, such as when the user is surfing the Internet. Downloading of information is enhanced by downloading addictional information selected by the user during idle times when the conventionally downloaded information is not being downloaded. The additional information may comprise web pages or other information previously selected by the user, which is downloaded in the background during the idle times. A graphic user interface is provide for accepting user selections of the addictional information, which may be displayed in a browser connected to the graphic user interface. The additional information is cached at the user'"'"'s computer and can be displayed at time selected by the user.

Claims

1. A method of enhanced downloading of information from a computer network to a computer operated by a user, the computer alternately downloading information from the computer network and not downloading information from the computer network, thereby causing one or more idle times, the method comprising:

accepting a user selection for additional information to be downloaded at a distinct graphical user interface connected to a web browser;

determining whether a cache is full;

accepting at least one user command at the graphical user interface for managing the cache in response to the cache being full;

downloading at least some of the additional information from the computer network to the computer operated by the user during at least one of the idle times; and

caching the downloaded additional information at the computer operated by the user substantially immediately after downloading;

wherein the step of downloading at least some of the additional information from the computer network to the computer operated by the user during at least one of the idle times further comprises;

prioritizing the downloading of conventionally downloaded information and the additional information;

wherein

the priority of the conventionally downloaded information is higher than the priority of the additional information;

wherein

the additional information comprises user selections, advertising, and predetermined favorite sources of information, and wherein the priority of user selections is higher than the priority of advertising, which is higher than the priority of predetermined favorite sources of information;

wherein

 

downloading of lower priority information is suspended to allow downloading of higher priority information;

wherein the step of accepting at least one user command at the graphical user interface for managing the cache in response to the cache being full further comprises being operable to accept commands to increase a size of the cache and to delete requests to download information from a queue.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

detecting at least one of the one or more idle times; and

wherein the downloading step comprises downloading at least some of the additional information from the computer network during the detected at least one idle time.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the computer network is the Internet.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the computer network is the World Wide Web.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

providing a web browser at the computer.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein the user selections comprise an address of a web page and the additional information comprises content of a web page.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

connecting the computer to the computer network.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the connecting step comprises:

utilizing a telephone connection to connect to the computer network.

9. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

displaying the retrieved additional information; and

disconnecting the computer from the computer network.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the displaying step is completed prior to the disconnecting step.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

maintaining a list related to the additional information.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the list comprises one or more selected from the group consisting of Uniform Resource Locators, addresses in the computer network, links, and hyperlinks.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein the list comprises one or more predetermined favorite sources of additional information in the computer network.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising

periodically monitoring the favorite sources of additional information;

sensing for

modification of the additional information; and

wherein the downloading step is performed if a modification is sensed.

15. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

accepting one or more alterations to the user selections for additional information to be downloaded.

16. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

downloading at least some of the additional information from the computer network during at least one of the idle times, in response to the step of accepting alterations.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the information is packetized and the prioritizing and downloading steps are performed on a packet-by-packet basis.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein the user selections for additional information are entered by a dragging and dropping operation.

19. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

running the graphical user interface in conjunction with a web browser.

20. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining if the web browser is activated;

launching the graphical user interface, if the web browser is activated and if the graphical user interface is not already active.

21. The method of claim 1 wherein the caching step comprises:

caching the additional information on a hard disk drive.

22. The method of claim 1 wherein the additional information is cached in a cache, the method further comprising:

managing the cache.

23. The method of claim 22 wherein the managing step comprises:

deleting contents of the cache if the cache is within a tolerance level of being full.

24. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

retrieving at least a portion of the cached additional information.

25. The method of claim 24 further comprising:

accepting user input that identifies the additional information to be retrieved.

26. The method of claim 24 further comprising:

displaying the retrieved additional information.

27. The method of claim 1 wherein the additional information comprises an advertisement.

28. The method of claim 27 further comprising:

displaying the advertisement as a banner at the computer.

29. The method of claim 27 wherein the advertisement comprises stereo audio.

30. The method of claim 27 wherein the advertisement comprises full-motion video.

31. The method of claim 1 wherein the downloading step comprises:

downloading the additional information from a server associated with the method of claim 1.

32. The method of claim 1 wherein the downloading step comprises:

displaying the additional information at one or more times selected by the user.

33. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

displaying the information conventionally downloaded, wherein the one or more idle times overlap to some extent with a time during which the information conventionally downloaded is displayed.

34. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

collecting user data.

35. The method of claim 34 wherein the user data comprises a demographic profile.

36. The method of claim 34 wherein the user data comprises characteristics of use of the computer network.

37. The method of claim 34 wherein the user data comprises the user selections.

38. The method of claim 34 further comprising:

targeting advertisements in accordance with the user data.

39. The method of claim 1 wherein the idle time is sandwiched between periods of downloading activity.

40. A method for enhancing downloading of information from a computer network to a computer operated by a user, the computer alternately downloading information from the computer network and not downloading information from the computernetwork, thereby causing one or more idle times, the method comprising:

accepting user selections for additional information to be downloaded at a distinct graphical user interface connected to a browser to display the additional information in the browser;

determining whether a cache is full;

accepting at least one user command at the graphical user interface for managing the cache in response to the cache being full;

downloading at least some of the additional information from the computer network to the computer operated by the user during at least one of the idle times; and

displaying the additional information at one or more times selected by the user;

wherein the step of accepting at least one user command at the graphical user interface for managing the cache in response to the cache being full further comprises being operable to accept at least user commands for deleting requests to download information from a queue and for increasing a size of the cache.

41. The method of claim 40 wherein the user selections are accepted in an order of acceptance, and the additional information is displayed in an order of display that is independent of the order of acceptance.

42. The method of claim 40 wherein the additional information is downloaded in an order of downloading, and the additional information is displayed in an order of display that is independent of the order of downloading.

43. An apparatus for use with a computer connected to a computer network, the computer operated by a user, the computer alternately downloading information from the computer network and not downloading information from the computer network, thereby causing one or more idle times, the apparatus comprising:

an interface, by which user selections for additional information to be downloaded are entered, at least one user command for managing a cache located at the computer is operable to be entered, and user commands for displaying the additional information are entered, wherein the interface is a distinct graphical user interface connected to a browser;

at least one transfer client, connected to the interface, by which at least some of the additional information is requested from the computer network during at least one of the idle times;

wherein the at least one transfer client is operable to prioritize a downloading of conventionally downloaded information and the additional information, the priority of the conventionally downloaded information being higher than the priority of the additional information;

wherein the additional information comprises user selections, advertising, and predetermined favorite sources of information, and wherein the priority of user selections is higher than the priority of advertising, which is higher than the priority of predetermined favorite sources of information; and

a cache, located at the computer operated by the user and connected to the transfer client, where the requested additional information is stored for later retrieval substantially immediately after being received from the computer network;

wherein the at least one user command operable to be entered comprises a command for deleting requests to download information from a queue and a command for increasing a size of the cache.

44. The apparatus of claim 43 wherein at least some of the user selections are entered by a dragging and dropping operation.

45. The apparatus of claim 43 wherein the transfer client is an HTTP compliant client.

46. The apparatus of claim 43 wherein the transfer client is a background Internet transfer agent.

47. The apparatus of claim 43 further comprising:

a queue manager, connected to the interface and the transfer client, by which the user selections are queued.

48. The apparatus of claim 43 further comprising:

a cache manager connected to the cache.

49. The apparatus of claim 43 further comprising:

a gateway connected to the transfer agent and the computer network.

50. The apparatus of claim 43 wherein the at least one transfer client are several transfer clients, each transfer client generating transfer requests of a given priority, the apparatus further comprising:

a priority resolver, connected to the several transfer clients, by which the transfer requests are processed in accordance with the priorities.

51. The apparatus of claim 43 wherein:

the browser alternately conventionally downloading information from the computer network and not conventionally downloading information from the computer network, thereby causing the one or more idle times.

52. The apparatus of claim 43 wherein at least one transfer client comprises a thread by which advertisements are transferred from the computer network.

53. The apparatus of claim 43 further comprising:

a display manager, connected to the interface and the cache, wherein the display manager controls displaying of cached advertisement in the interface.

54. The apparatus of claim 53 further comprising:

a timer, connected to the display manager, wherein the timer periodically prompts the display manager to display an advertisement in the interface.

55. The apparatus of claim 43 further comprising:

a timer, connected to the thread, wherein the timer periodically prompts the thread to transfer advertisements from the computer network.

56. The apparatus of claim 43 wherein the cache contents comprises at least one default advertisement.

57. An apparatus for use with a computer connected to a computer network, the computer operated by a user, the apparatus comprising:

a browser by which the user alternately downloads information from the computer network and not downloads information from the computer network, thereby causing one or more idle times;

a distinct graphical user interface connected to the browser, by which user selections for additional information to be downloaded are entered, user commands for displaying the additional information are entered, and at least one user command for managing a cache is entered, the cache being operable to store the additional information for later retrieval;

wherein the graphical user interface is connected to the browser to display the additional information in the browser; and

at least one transfer client, connected to the interface and the cache, by which at least some of the additional information is requested from the computer network during at least one of the idle times for downloading and storage in the cache;

wherein the at least one user command for managing a cache comprises deleting requests to download information from a queue and increasing a size of the cache.

58. The apparatus of claim 57, wherein requests are deleted by date, such that earliest request in the queue are automatically deleted first, in response to the at least one command being entered.

59. The apparatus of claim 57, wherein the at least one command comprises at least one user selection of a request in the queue for deletion.