Response time of transformed documents based on caching and dynamic transformation

#This patent document contains information subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent, as it appears in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office files or records but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

#Aspects of the present invention relate to digital document. Other aspects of the present invention relate to transmitting digital document over networks.

#The Internet era has bought great demand for digital document access via a variety of heterogeneous devices. For example, a user may download a web page via a personal data assistant (PDA). A user may also access stock information through a cellular i phone. Furthermore, a user may request a commercial transaction form from a browser running on a personal computer connecting to the Internet.

#The present invention is further described in terms of exemplary embodiments, which will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. These embodiments are nonlimiting exemplary embodiments, in which like reference numerals represent similar parts throughout the several views of the drawings, and wherein:

#FIG. 1 (prior art) illustrates a framework in which a document requested by a client from a server is transformed from a source format to a destination form via a network device between the client and the server;

#FIG. 2 depicts a framework in which a document, requested by a client from a server, is delivered based on dynamic caching and transformation, according to embodiments of the present invention;

#The processing described below may be performed by a properly programmed general-purpose computer alone or in connection with a special purpose computer. Such processing may be performed by a single platform or by a distributed processing platform. In addition, such processing and functionality can be implemented in the form of special purpose hardware or in the form of software being run by a general-purpose computer. Any data handled in such processing or created as a result of such processing can be stored in any memory as is conventional in the art. By way of example, such data may be stored in a temporary memory, such as in the RAM of a given computer system or subsystem. In addition, or in the alternative, such data may be stored in longer-term storage devices, for example, magnetic disks, rewritable optical disks, and so on. For purposes of the disclosure herein, a computer-readable media may comprise any form of data storage mechanism, including such existing memory technologies as well as hardware or circuit representations of such structures and of such data.

#FIG. 2 depicts a framework 200 in which a document, requested by a client from a server, is delivered based on dynamic caching and transformation, according to embodiments of the present invention. The framework 200 comprises a client group 110, a server group 150, and a device 210. The client group 110 may include one or more clients 110a, 110b, . . . , 110c. The server group 150 may include one or more servers 150a, . . . , 150b. Each of the servers in the server group 150 may provide to a client with certain services such as information service or web service via a network 120.

#Each of the clients may correspond to a device that is capable of communicating and interacting with the servers in the server group 150 via the network 120 and the device 210. For example, a client may be a personal computer (e.g., PC 110c), a personal data assistant (e.g., PDA 110b), or a cellular phone (e.g., 110a). The PC client 110c may communicate, via a web browser, to one of the servers in the server group 150 (e.g., server 1 150a) to request a web page. The network 120 represents a generic network, which may correspond to, but not limited to, a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), the Internet, a wireless network, or a proprietary network. The device 210 may correspond to, but not limited to, a network device such as a proxy device, a load balancer, or an e-commerce director that connects to the servers in the server group 150 and directs inbound and outbound traffic. Multiple servers may share a same device 210 or a single server may also connect to a plurality of such devices that perform substantially similar functions as that of the device 210 (not shown in FIG. 1).