Locally executing software agent for retrieving remote content and method for creation and use of the agent

• US 7,313,588 B1
• Filed: 07/13/2000
• Issued: 12/25/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fourthwall Media Incorporated
• Original Assignee: BIAP Systems, Inc. (Fourthwall Media Incorporated)
• Inventors: Shotton, Charles T. Jr., Slothouber, Louis P., Dudar, M. Ellen
• Primary Examiner(s): BULLOCK JR, LEWIS ALEXANDER
• Application Number:
  US09/615,830
• Time in Patent Office: 2,721 Days
• Field of Search: 719/317, 719500-978, 709/202
• US Class Current: 709/202
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results

Abstract

A software agent is provided which executes instructions on a local user'"'"'s computer to retrieve potentially changing information content from remote target sources, including web pages, over a computer network, such as the Internet. Different types of software agents are available to retrieve different types of information content from remote sites. Agent types include a smart agent, a search agent, a custom agent for detailed tasks and an RSS agent for retrieving structured XML format documents from remote Internet sites. Information retrieved by the agents is formatted and stored locally for presentation in a publication on the local computer. Publication templates can display target content retrieved by multiple agents from many different remote target pages.

Claims

1. A local computer for retrieving a changing target content from multiple target sources on a remote computer, the local computer comprising:

a user interface for inputting information into an application window, wherein information consists of;

a URL of a target source, a start and end marker text of a target content of said target source; and

a structural location of the target content within target source code;

an agent builder program for identifying the URL of the target source inputted by a user, and for analyzing and decomposing of said target content; and

a software agent comprising program instructions for automatically retrieving a target section of said target source code irrespective of whether the target content has been moved or has changed within the target source;

the software agent for retrieving a changing target content from a first target source on a remote computer, the software agent further comprising;

means for retrieving data from a target source on a remote computer,

first program instructions for identifying a predefined structural location of target content located within a version of data retrieved from the first target source, said predefined structural location based upon a structural location of target content identified in a previous version of data retrieved from the target source using the agent builder program and stored as information, said first target source comprising content in addition to said target content;

second program instructions for identifying a predefined structural location of target content located within said version of data retrieved from the first target source by evaluating the target source for the start and end market text when the target content cannot be identified by the first program instructions; and

an agent engine for executing said first program instructions and said second program instructions to retrieve potentially changing target content from the predefined structural location in the target source; and

third program instructions for displaying a first portion of content retrieved from the target source, the first portion consisting of the potentially changing target content from the predefined structural location in the first target source, the second program instructions further for displaying, simultaneously with the portion of content retrieved from the target source, a second portion of content retrieved from a second target source, the second target source being different from the first target source.

2. A software agent according to claim 1, wherein the data is a web page structure and the first program instructions and the second program instructions further comprise algorithms for parsing the data retrieved from the target source structure to find the target content.

3. A locally executing software applications for retrieving and arranging target content from a target source on a remote computer on to a local computer, the software applications comprising:

a user interface application for inputting information into an application window, wherein information consists of;

a URL of a target document, a start and end marker text of a target content of said target document, and a structural location of the target content within target document source code;

an agent builder application for identifying the URL of the target document inputted by a user, and for analyzing and decomposing of said target content; and

a software agent comprising program instructions for automatically retrieving a target section of said target document source code irrespective of whether the target content has been moved or has changed within the target document;

a software application comprising at least one agent generated by the agent builder application having information describing a predefined structural location of a target content within a target document, the target document comprising content in addition to the target content, and an agent engine for executing first program instructions and second program instructions using the information to automatically download a dynamically changing target document from a remote computer, locate a changing target content within the target document, extract the located target content, reformat the extracted target content into a common format, and store the target content on the local computer irrespective of whether the target content has been moved or changed within the target document, first program instructions to locate the changing target content using the structural location from the target content that was defined from a previous version of the target document and second program instructions to locate the changing target content using the start and end market text when the target content is not found by first program instructions; and

at least one publication template for arranging a portion of the dynamically changing target document consisting of the retrieved, stored target content for display on the local computer.

4. The software applications according to claim 3, further comprising an application display window capable of displaying the target content as arranged by the publication template.

5. The software applications according to claim 4, wherein the application display window is a web browser.

6. The software applications according to claim 3, wherein the at least one agent comprises a plurality of agents and the at least one publication template comprises a plurality of publication templates.

7. The software applications according to claim 3, further comprising the software application having scheduling means for executing the at least one agent on a periodic schedule.

8. The software applications according to claim 3, wherein the at least one agent includes parsing means for determining the location of target content within the structure of the target document.

9. The software application applications according to claim 8, wherein the parsing means comprises agent information having target content source structure information and algorithms for parsing the structure of the target document to find a target document structure containing the target content described by the agent information.

10. A method for retrieving a target content from a remote computer, the method comprising:

receiving information from a user as input to a user interface, wherein information consists of;

a URL of a target document, a start and end marker text of a target content of said target document, and a structural location of a target content within target document source code;

generating, by an agent builder program, a first software agent, the first software agent comprising routines for automatically retrieving a target section of said target document using said information irrespective of whether the target content has been moved or has changed within the target document;

providing a software application having at least one autonomous agent generated by the agent builder program, wherein the at least one autonomous agent comprises the first software agent, each autonomous software agent comprising, a respective agent information, routines and an agent engine to execute the routines and apply agent information to download a dynamically changing target document from a remote computer, locate a changing target content within the target document, extract the located target content, reformat the extracted target content into a common format, and store the content on a local computer, wherein the routines of each autonomous software agent comprises a first routine that uses the structural location that was defined from a previous version of the target document and associated with the agent information to locate the changing target content and a second routing that uses the start and end marker text to locate the changing target when the target content is not found by the first routine;

executing the at least one agent on the local computer to download the target document from the remote computer and locate and extract the target content from the target document by executing the first routine and the second routine;

storing the retrieved target content on the local computer; and

displaying a portion of target document, the portion consisting of the retrieved target content.

11. The method according to claim 10, further comprising displaying the stored target content on the local computer.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein displaying the stored target content comprises providing a publication template having formatting, selecting stored content to display using the publication template formatting, and arranging the stored content according to the publication template formatting in an application window on the local computer.

13. The method according to claim 10, wherein executing the agent comprises running the at least one agent, generating with the at least one agent an instruction to retrieve at least one document identified by the target source URL to the local computer, finding the target content within the retrieved at least one document using the first routine and the second routine and copying the target content.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein storing the retrieved target content further comprises saving the copied target content as an agent result file on the local computer.

15. The method according to claim 14, further comprising displaying the stored target content on the local computer.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein displaying the stored target content comprises providing a publication template having formatting, selecting at least one agent result file to display using the publication template formatting, and arranging the stored content in the agent result file according to the publication template formatting in an application window on the local computer.

17. The method according to claim 16, wherein the at least one agent comprises a plurality of agents, selecting at least one agent result file comprises selecting a plurality of agent result files, the stored content in each of the plurality of agent result files being arranged according to the publication template formatting in the application window.

18. The method according to claim 13, wherein finding the target content comprises parsing the target document, and locating a structure within the parsed target document structure matching the structural location information in the agent information.

19. The method according to claim 18, wherein locating the structure comprises applying a plurality of algorithms to the parsed target document structure.

20. A method for downloading a dynamically changing target document from a remote computer to a local computer and locating and extracting a target content from the target document, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving information from a user as input into an agent builder program for automating the retrieval of dynamically changing target content;

downloading a target document from a remote computer by an agent generated by said agent builder program, and further characterized by the steps of

identifying a target content within the target document, the target document comprising content in addition to the target content;

parsing the target document to determine a structural location of the target content in the target document; and

storing a description of the structural location of the target content, a URL associated with the target document, and a start and end marker text of the target content as agent information;

generating, by the agent builder program, a first software agent, the software agent comprising routines for automatically retrieving a target section of said target document using said agent information irrespective of whether the target content has been moved or has changed within the target document;

downloading a subsequent version of the target document from the remote computer by said first software agent;

retrieving the target content within the subsequent version of the target document, and further characterized by the steps of;

executing routines of the agent to locate and retrieve the target content by executing a first routine wherein locating and retrieving use the structural location associated with the agent information to locate the target content and a second routine wherein locating and retrieving use the start and end marker text when the target content is not found by the first routine; and

displaying a portion of the subsequent version of the target document, the portion consisting of the target content.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein identifying the target content comprises providing identifying start marker text and identifying end marker text that delimits the target content in the target document.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the start marker text and end marker text each comprise one of plain text, stylized text, and HTML syntax elements.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein the start marker text and end marker text define target content separated by non-text web page elements.

24. The method of claim 21, wherein the target content is contained in two different structures in the target source.