US 6,625,624 B1Granted

Information access system and method for archiving web pages

AssigneeAT&T Corp.

InventorsYih-Farn Robin Chen, Chung-Hwa Herman Rao, Ming-Feng Chen

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Abstract

The present invention presents a system and method of providing information retrieved from a server from across a communication network that enables archiving services that do not interfere with existing components and protocols. The services enable users to retrieve and/or search for old information, even after such information has evolved or disappeared from the original server. The network resource naming (e.g. URL) format is extended to include archive directives that are intercepted and performed by a proxy server. The proxy interprets the archive directive and executes the specified archival command: e.g., adding the information to a storage repository, searching and retrieving the information from the storage repository, scheduling automatic archiving of specified server information, transparent archiving of information that is accessed by the client or of the client's cache. The information can be easily indexed by a timestamp. Multiple proxy servers can collaborate permitting information to be archived in a distributed fashion. Embodiments of the present invention advantageously do not require changes to client or server software or communication protocols.

Claims10

Dependent claims

A proxy server interposed between at least one client browser and a server, the proxy server comprising:

a first interface for establishing a document serving protocol channel to the server;
a second interface for establishing a second document serving protocol channel to the client browser;
a storage device for archiving documents;
a processor adapted to
(i) receive a first requests from the client browser for one or more documents on the server,
(ii) retrieve the documents from the server,
(iii) store the documents on the storage device,
(iv) associate the stored documents with date information indicating when the documents were retrieved from the server,
(v) sending the documents to the client browser,
(vi) receive at a later time a second request from the client browser wherein the request contains an archive directive,
(vii) parse the second requests for an archive directive, and,
(viii) where the requests contain an archive directive requesting an archived copy of the one or more documents and specifying an archival date or a range of archival dates,
(a) access the storage devices,
(b) search for date information associated with documents stored on the storage device that match the archival date specified in the request,
(c) if there is matching date information, retrieving the documents from the storage device associated with the date information and sending the retrieved documents to the client browser, and
(d) if there is more than one matching date information, sending a list of archived documents with associated matching date information to the client browser.

13 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 09/475,556Filed 30 Dec 1999 · us provisional application
Priority: 3 Feb 1999
Granted: 23 Sep 2003
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification6 codes

G06F 16/9574
Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation: of access to content, e.g. by caching
Y10S 707/99945
Object-oriented database structure: object-oriented database structure processing
Y10S 707/99953
Coherency, e.g. same view to multiple users: recoverability
Y10S 707/99955
Coherency, e.g. same view to multiple users: archiving or backup

Family

Application60/118,367Us provisional application · filed 3 Feb 1999
Application60/118,651Us provisional application · filed 4 Feb 1999
Application60/126,705Us provisional application · filed 29 Mar 1999
Application60/133,345Us provisional application · filed 10 May 1999
US 6,625,624 B1This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.