Appendix A is a hard copy printout of the assembly listing consisting of 37 pages, including the title page. This assembly listing is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the reproduction of the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
The present invention relates to communication networks, and more particularly to networks providing document access to authorized subscribers.
One application of information retrieval systems is to provide (by display, printing, or other appropriate means) a collection of documents that is directed to a particular field, so that a particular set of authorized users can select and retrieve a desired portion of the collection. One example of such a system for use in the office of a professional practice has a terminal connected to a memory device having the collection accessible to it (such a collection of video tapes or compact disk ROM being selectively inserted into a compatible drive unit), the terminal controlling the drive unit to access desired portions of particular ones of the media having documents of interest to clients of the practice. Unfortunately, such systems are expensive to provide, set up, and maintain in that all of the costs must be attributed to a single practice. Also, the set up and maintenance frequently requires skills that are not readily available on site.
A recent development is the wide use of network communications over the Internet, on which a wide variety of information is available in massive volumes using local telephone connections and personal computers. The Internet is actually a collection of networks and gateways that use the Transport Control Protocol/Interface Program (TCP/IP) suite of protocols that was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense. The local telephone connections are typically to nearby network server computers (servers) that have connections to other servers. Documents and other information are commonly stored on the Internet using Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) in HTML or ASP format in web sites that are implemented at associated servers, the sites being addressed and navigated by using xe2x80x9cbrowserxe2x80x9d software of user""s computers. The HTTP version 1.1 (outlined in detail in RFC 2068 at http:www.csl.sony.co.jp/cgi-bin/hyperrfc?rfc2068.txt) specifies that upon transmission of each requested element, the browser disconnects from the server. Thus the protocol as defined is xe2x80x9cconnectionlessxe2x80x9d in that a single continuous connection is not maintained while browsing a website. A great advantage of this technology is that a large segment of the general population has access to the Internet from home. However, much of that information is of questionable validity, especially when provided free of charge, and the location of relevant information can be a daunting task that involves sifting through great volumes of extraneous records.
Consequently, a number of Internet and other computer database services that are restricted to paying subscribers have been developed. These services are commercially viable for business applications; however, they are often excessively expensive and difficult to use in relation to their utility for infrequent personal use. Also, many such services that need to identify users cause authorization information to be transmitted and permanently stored on users"" computer hard disk drives. Traditionally Internet servers identify a user by transmitting the requested data along with a special plain text file called a xe2x80x9ccookiexe2x80x9d which is stored on the user""s computer disk memory and can have values written thereto by the server. These cookies typically contain information like the user""s name and miscellaneous data that is read back each time the user connects and makes a request, typically for each page or element thereof as indicated above. These cookies are objectionable in that it can contain xe2x80x9cvirusesxe2x80x9d that are known to be harmful to the users"" computers. Accordingly, web browsers of the prior art pop up a dialog box that asks whether the user will accept the cookie, further creating an inconvenience to the user. If the user refuses the cookie, then continuity is effectively broken between the browser and the server.
Thus there is a need for a reliable source of information that is relevant to clients of professional practices, that is easily accessed and selected by authorized users, that monitors or tracks user access sessions without requiring users to accept cookies, and that is inexpensive to set up and maintain without requiring high levels of specialized skill by employees of particular practices having clients that are authorized users.
The present invention meets this need by providing a network database system wherein clients of subscribing entities are authorized network access to reliable documents that are identified by each entity as being relevant to clients of that entity. Features that can be included in the system are customization of the documents to reflect sourcing by particular subscribers, automated formatting of the documents for storing in a network database, client access facilitated by subscriber-maintained databases, and the avoidance of cookies remaining on clients"" computer hard drives following document access. It will be understood that while the term xe2x80x9ccookiexe2x80x9d can include transmitted and stored codes that do not remain following network access and is therefore not considered harmful, as used herein the term is exclusive of transmitted access data that does not remain stored in the client""s computer following termination of network access.