Method and system for selecting a personalized set of information channels

Abstract

A method for distributing information to a plurality of user stations each configured for communications with a multiplicity of servers via a non-proprietary network, includes steps for providing each of the user stations with a client interface that enables a user at that user station to select a personalized set of information channels from a listing of available information channels, wherein each information channel carries digital content from at least one of the servers; and providing each of the user stations with the digital content carried by the selected information channels. A corresponding system and user station are also described.

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. A method for distributing information to a plurality of user stations via a server based information distribution service over a network including the Internet, comprising:

for each of the user stations, providing the user station with a directory of items, the directory being provided over the network to the user station by the information distribution service;

for each of the user stations, enabling a user at the user station to select a personalized set of multiple items from the directory; and

for each of the user stations, transferring, via the information distribution service over the network to the user station, information contained in a plurality of information objects corresponding to respective items of the selected personalized set of multiple items, in response to a single triggering action by the user at the user station.

2. The method as set forth in claim 1, further comprising providing each of the user stations with means for viewing the information transferred to the respective ones of the user stations.

3. The method as set forth in claim 1, further comprising providing each of the user stations with viewer software for viewing the information transferred to the respective ones of the user stations.

4. The method as set forth in claim 3, wherein the viewer software comprises an HTML-capable viewer.

5. The method as set forth in claim 1, further comprising for each of the user stations, providing the user station with a customized user interface for viewing the information.

6. The method as set forth in claim 1, further comprising. for each of the user stations, providing the user station with means for enabling the user at the user station to select from the information information of interest to the user at the user station.

7. The method as set forth in claim 5, further comprising, for each of the user stations, providing the user station with means for enabling the user at the user station to select from the information contained at least one of in the information objects corresponding to at least one of the items of the selected personalized set of multiple items, information of interest to the user at the respective one of the user stations.

8. The method as set forth in claim 6, further comprising providing each of the user stations with means for viewing the selected information of interest.

9. The method as set forth in claim 7, further comprising providing each of the user stations with means for viewing the selected information of interest.

10. The method as set forth in claim 6, further comprising automatically storing the selected information of interest for subsequent access by the user at the respective one of the user stations.

11. The method as set forth in claim 6, further comprising providing each of the user stations with means for automatically storing the selected information of interest to the user at the respective one of the user stations in temporary storage locations at the respective one of the user stations.

12. The method as set forth in claim 6, further comprising providing each of the user stations with means for automatically storing the selected information of interest to the user at the respective one of the user stations in persistent storage locations at the respective one of the user stations.

13. The method as set forth in claim 1, wherein the information contained in the information objects corresponding to the respective items of the selected personalized set of multiple items originates from separate and independent publishers.

14. The method as set forth in claim 1, wherein the information includes graphical content.

15. The method as set forth in claim 1, wherein the information includes multimedia content.

16. The method as set forth in claim 1, wherein the information includes software.

17. The method as set forth in claim 1, wherein the information includes news updates.

18. The method as set forth in claim 1, wherein the information includes software updates.

19. The method as set forth in claim 1, wherein the respective items of the personalized set of multiple items are identified in an object manifest.

20. The method as set forth in claim 1, wherein the respective items of the personalized set of multiple items are identified in an object manifest by respective generic names.

21. The method as set forth in claim 1, further comprising automatically notifying the user at each respective one of the user stations when an update of the information contained in the information objects corresponding to the respective items of the personalized set of multiple items is available.

22. The method as set forth in claim 1, wherein the transferring step is carried out using a non-proprietary data transfer protocol.

23. The method as set forth in claim 6, further comprising generating an object manifest for each instance of transferring.

24. The method as set forth in claim 1, further comprising automatically notifying a software entity at the respective one of the user stations when an update of the information contained in at least one of the information objects referred to by the respective items of the personalized set of multiple items is available.

25. The method as set forth in claim 24, wherein the software entity triggers an automatic data transfer to the respective one of the user stations of the updated information, of the user's personalized set of multiple information channels, in response to automatic notification of availability of an update.

26. The method as set forth in claim 22, wherein the server based information distribution service includes at least one server that is an open architecture server.

27. A system for distributing information to a plurality of user stations via a server based information distribution service over a network including the Internet, comprising:

first code that provides each of the user stations with a directory of items over the network from which a user at each respective one of the user stations can select a personalized set of multiple items; and

second code that effects transport, to each of the user stations, via the information distribution service, over the network, of information contained in a plurality of information objects corresponding to respective items of the personalized set of multiple items, in response to a single triggering action by the user at the respective one of the user stations.

28. A system as set forth in claim 27, further comprising, for each user station, an HTML-capable viewer that enables the user at the respective one of the user stations, to view the information.

29. The system as set forth in claim 27, further comprising, for each of the user stations, a respective customized user interface for viewing the information.

30. The system as set forth in claim 27, further comprising software that enables the user at each user station to select from the information, information of interest to the user at the respective one of the user stations.

31. The system as set forth in claim 29, further comprising software that enables the user at each user station to select from the information, information of interest to the user at the respective one of the user stations.

32. The system as set forth in claim 30, further comprising, for each of the user stations, means for automatically storing the selected information of interest for subsequent access by the user at the respective one of the user stations.

33. The system as set forth in claim 27, wherein the information contained in the information objects referred to by the respective items of the personalized set of multiple items originates from separate and independent publishers.

34. The system as set forth in claim 27, wherein the information includes graphical content.

35. The system as set forth in claim 27, wherein the information includes multimedia content.

36. The system as set forth in claim 27, wherein the information includes software.

37. The system as set forth in claim 27, wherein the information includes news updates.

38. The system as set forth in claim 27, wherein the information includes software updates.

39. The system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the respective items of the personalized set of multiple items are identified in an object manifest by respective generic names.

40. The system as set forth in claim 32, further comprising third code for automatically notifying the user at each respective one of the user stations when an update of the information contained in the information objects corresponding to the respective items of the personalized set of multiple items is available.

41. The system as set forth in claim 30, wherein the second code utilizes a non-proprietary data transfer protocol.

42. The system as set forth in claim 30, further comprising means for generating an object manifest for each instance of transporting.

43. The system as set forth in claim 32, further comprising third code for automatically notifying a software entity at the respective one of the user stations when an update of the information contained in at least one of the information objects referred to by the respective items of the personalized set of multiple items is available.

44. The system as set forth in claim 32, wherein the second code enables a software entity at the respective one of the user stations to trigger an automatic transport to the respective one of the user stations of the information contained in at least one of the information information objects referred to by the respective items of the personalized set of multiple items, in response to automatic notification of availability of an update.

45. The system as set forth in claim 41, wherein the server based information distribution service includes at least one server that is an open architecture server.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to computer-implemented transport of electronic information objects. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and corresponding system that enables a user at a user station to select a personalized set of information channels from a listing of available information channels.

Electronic publication is an exploding industry in which thousands of new products including magazines and periodicals, software applications and utilities, video games, business, legal and financial information and databases, encyclopedias and dictionaries are purchased by millions of customers. Commonly, such information products are replicated in computer-readable form on magnetic or optical storage diskettes and are box-packaged with printed manuals for distribution to retail stores and direct mail sales. These marketing practices are relatively expensive and involve a significant time lag of at least days or weeks to get a product into a consumer's hands once it is created.

Such costs and delays are generally acceptable for original, high value products such as collections of publications or software application, of which some examples are NEWSWEEK.RTM. Interactive CD-ROM, or disks, which provides a searchable audio-visual library of issues of NEWSWEEK magazine and CINEMANIA.RTM. CD-ROM which provides reviews and other information on newly released films. For time-sensitive, low-value updates, for example, the latest issue of Newsweek or last week's movie reviews, distribution in stored form, on physical media, is slow and the cost may exceed the value of the information in the product.

Thus, electronic transfer from a central computer server to a subscriber's computer over common carriers or wide area networks is an attractive proposition. Similar considerations apply to the distribution of software program updates, although cost and frequency of issue are not such serious constraints. A problem faced in both situations is that of incorporating the received material with the original material so that a fully integrated publication, information database or software program is obtained by the user.

Another class of electronically distributed information product comprises home shopping catalogues of mail order products distributed on optical or other digital data storage disks which may contain text, sound and images from printed catalogues or uniquely created material, for example software application demos. To applicant's knowledge and belief, available products lack any computer order placement capability, requiring orders to be placed by voice call.

Communication between remote computers, not directly interconnected by umbilical cable or a wired network, is enabled by a wide range of hardware devices and software drivers, utilities, applications and application modules. Telephone modems that couple a computer with the telephone network are familiar devices. RF modems that couple computers into wireless networks are less familiar but are beginning to appear in consumer devices known broadly as personal information communicators (PIC's) of which personal digital assistants (PDA's) such as Apple Corp.'s NEWTON.RTM. product are a first generation. New kinds of digital communications devices can be expected to emerge as digital technology replaces analog transmission.

General-purpose, online, modem-accessed, electronic information services, such as PRODIGY, COMPUSERVE and AMERICA ONLINE (trademarks), and some Internet services, provide wide access to timely information products from a central server, but are limited and complex. They provide no means for the integration of downloaded information with information products offered on disk or CD, and provide only rudimentary facilities for local viewing and search of downloaded files.

Such online information services provide their own user interface which is generally unlike that of a disk or CD-based information product, and can be customized very little, if at all, by a publisher using the service for product distribution.

Online services are oriented to extended online sessions which require complex user interaction to navigate and find desired information objects. Initial setup and use is rendered complex by requirements related to extended session use of data networks and the frequent need to navigate across the network, and through massive data collections, to locate desired data items. General-purpose online information services do not provide a suitable medium for electronic information publishers to distribute updates, and the like, because of limited interface flexibility, because a publisher cannot expect all their customer base to be service subscribers, and because of cost and payment difficulties. Such services are centered on monolithic processes intended for national use by millions of subscribers which processes are not readily adaptable.

Online service charging mechanisms are also inflexible and inappropriate for most individual information products, requiring monthly subscription fees of $5-10 or more, plus time charges for extended use, which are billed directly to users, after a user sign-up and credit acceptance process. Such cost mechanisms are too expensive and too complex for distribution of many products such as magazine and other low cost update products. They do not presently permit a publisher to build an access fee into a purchase price or a product subscription.

Recent press announcements from corporations such as AT&T, Lotus, Microsoft and MCI describe plans for new online services providing what are called "groupware" services to offer rich electronic mail and group collaboration functions, primarily for business organizations. Although offering multiple electronic object transport operations such services are believed to have complex setup procedures and software requirements and complex message routing features and protocols, and to lack interface flexibility. Accordingly, they are not suitable for mass distribution of low cost electronic information update products and cannot achieve the objectives of the invention.

Communications Products

Many software products exist that enable one computer to communicate with another over a remote link such as a telephone cable or the air waves, but none enables a vendor substantially to automate common carrier mass distribution of an electronic information product to a customer base employing multiple heterogenous systems with indeterminate hardware and software configurations. Two examples of popular such software products are Datastorm Technologies, Inc.'s PROCOMM (trademark) and CENTRAL POINT COMMUTE (trademark) from Central Point Software, Inc. which are commonly used to provide a variety of functions, including file transfers between, interactive sessions from, host-mode services from, and remote computer management of, modem-equipped personal computers wired into the telephone network.

Counterpoint Publishing's Federal Register Publications

Counterpoint Publishing, (Cambridge Mass.) in brochures available to the applicant in November 1993 offered electronic information products entitled "Daily Federal Register" and "CD Federal Register." "Daily Federal Register" includes communications software and a high-speed modem. Apparently, the communications software is a standard general purpose communications package with dialing scripts that are customized to the needs of the Federal Register products. Accordingly, the cost of a communications package license which may be as high as about $100 at retail must be included within the product cost. Also, Counterpoint Publishing avoids the difficulties of supporting various modems by providing its own standard modem, with the product, building in a cost (about $100-200) which renders this approach quite unsuitable for mass-market distribution of low cost electronic information update products. The resulting product is not seamless either in its appearance or its operation because the communications software is separately invoked and used, and has its own disparate look and feel to the user.

The "CD Federal Register" provides the Federal Register on CD-ROM at weekly intervals for $1,950.00 and CD-ROM disks are shipped to customers as they become available. Back issues are $125 each. Updates are provided by shipping a disk. The Federal Register is a high-value product intended for specialist, business, academic and governmental users. Distribution of updates on CD-ROM, as utilized by Counterpoint Publishing, is not a suitable method for lower value products such as a weekly news magazine, because of the associated costs. Shipping delays are a further drawback.

While the two product "CD Federal Register" and "Daily Federal Register" might be used together, at an additive cost, to provide a combination of archives on CD-ROM plus daily updates obtained and stored until replaced by a new CD-ROM, based on information available to the present inventor it appears that the two products must be used separately. Thus they must apparently be viewed, searched, and managed as two or more separate collections, requiring multiple steps to perform a complete search across both collections, and requiring manual management and purging of the current collection on hard disk by the user.

Xcellenet's "REMOTEWARE".RTM.

Xcellenet Inc. in product brochures copyrighted 1992 and a price list dated Aug. 16, 1993, for a "REMOTEWARE".RTM. product line, offers a range of REMOTEWARE.RTM. software-only products providing electronic information distribution to and from remote nodes of a proprietary REMOTEWARE.RTM. computer network intended for use within an organized, corporate or institutional data processing or management information system. The system is primarily server directed, rather than user initiated and requires an expensive program (priced at $220.00) to run at the user's node whereas the present invention addresses consumer uses which will support costs of no more than a few dollars per node.

Furthermore, REMOTEWARE.RTM. is primarily intended to be used with other REMOTEWARE.RTM. products at the node which other products provide a range of user interface and data management functions, at significant additional cost, each with their own separate user interface presenting a standard REMOTEWARE.RTM. look and feel. In addition, the nodes require a sophisticated central support and operations function to be provided, which may be difficult for an electronic information publisher to accomplish and add unacceptable expense.

REMOTEWARE.RTM. is overly elaborate to serve the simpler objectives of the present invention. Designed for the demanding needs of enterprise-wide data processing communications, the client or node package provides many functions such as background operation, ability to receive calls from the server at any time, ability to work under control of the central server to survey and update system software and files and an ability to support interactive sessions, which abilities are not needed to carry out the simpler information transport operations desired by the present invention. Such capabilities may be desirable in an enterprise MIS environment, but are not appropriate to a consumer or open commercial environment, and bring the drawbacks of complexity, cost, and program size, which may put undesirable operational constraints on the user (and perhaps even compromise the user's privacy). REMOTEWARE.RTM. is too costly and complex for mass distribution of updates to periodicals, cannot be shipped invisibly with an electronic information product and requires specialized server software and operations support that would challenge all but the largest and most technically sophisticated publishers. Accordingly, REMOTEWARE.RTM. is unsuitable for widespread use as an economical means of distributing updates for a variety of electronic information products.

Although it has wider applications, a significant problem addressed by the invention is the problem of economically distributing updates of electronic information products to a wide customer base that may number tens or hundreds of thousands, and in some cases, millions of consumers. At the date of this invention, such a customer base will normally include an extensive variety of computers, operating systems and communications devices, if the latter are present, all of which may have their own protocols and configuration requirements.

While an electronic information product vendor might consider licensing or purchasing an existing commercial communications product for distribution with their publication product to enable remote, diskless updating, the high cost of such a solution would generally be unacceptable because a communication package includes a broad range of functionalities not required for the vendor's particular purpose, for example, remote keyboarding. Significantly, a commercial communications package is not susceptible to customization of its user interface and may have its own configuration requirements and installation requirements, with regard to directories, device drivers and the like, which are incompatible with other vendor or user requirements or are simply a nuisance to the user. Thus, a commercial communications product in addition to its cost, cannot be satisfactorily integrated with an information product.

There is accordingly a need for computer-implementable information transport software to enable simple, economical and prompt mass distribution of electronic information products.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

This invention solves a problem. It solves the problem of enabling simple, economical and prompt mass distribution of electronic information products.

In one aspect, the present invention provides a method for distributing information to a plurality of user stations each configured for communications with a multiplicity of servers via a non-proprietary network, including steps for providing each of the user stations with a client interface that enables a user at that user station to select a personalized set of information channels from a listing of available information channels, wherein each information channel carries digital content from at least one of the servers; and providing each of the user stations with the digital content carried by the selected information channels.

According to one aspect, the present invention provides a system for distributing information to a plurality of user stations each configured for communications with a multiplicity of servers via a non-proprietary network. Advantageously, the system includes a client interface device that enables a user at each user station to select a personalized set of information channels from a listing of available information channels, wherein each information channel carries digital content from at least one of the servers; and a transporter device that transports the digital content carried by the selected information channels to each of the user stations.

According to another aspect, the present invention provides a method for controlling a user station including steps for effectuating communication sessions between the user station and each of a selected plurality of independently-operated servers via a non-proprietary network; and providing a user interface enabling a user to select a customized set of multiple data object sources from a menu of available data object sources, wherein the customized set of multiple data object sources comprises the selected plurality of independently-operated servers.

According to yet another aspect, the present invention provides a user station configured for communications with a multiplicity of servers via a non-proprietary network. Preferably, the user station includes client interface functionality that enables a user at the user station to select a personalized set of information channels from a listing of available information channels, wherein each information channel carries digital content from at least one of the servers; and transporter functionality that transports the digital content carried by the selected information channels to the user station.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

One way of carrying out the invention is described in detail below with reference to drawings which illustrate only one specific embodiment of the invention and in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of one embodiment of an information transport software component according to the invention installed in a computer workstation and communicating with a complementary centrally located server-resident software module for mass distribution of digitized electronic information objects;

FIG. 2 is a flow block diagram of an information transport operation performed by the software component and module of the embodiment of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a server-based electronic distribution service employing an inventive information transport software component;

FIG. 4 is a further schematic diagram of the service illustrated in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a prior art communications product employed to transport an information object between a user and a remote server;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram similar to FIG. 5 showing, in a comparative manner, some of the benefits that can flow to a user when an information transport software component, such as that described with reference to FIG. 1, is used for a similar transport operation;

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of a basic object retrieval embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of a product-integrated interface embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of a server-enhanced embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the invention providing update objects via a commercial service;

FIG. 11 is a schematic diagram of a multiple service routes embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 12 is a schematic diagram of an offline Web browser embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 13 is a schematic flow diagram of a hyperlink readdressing or redirection process according to the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Referring to FIG. 1, the inventive software component is schematically shown in operative mode installed at a user's computer workstation. The workstation is communications-equipped for communication with remote services, for example by modem, which services are also shown schematically. Only relevant software and hardware components of the system are shown.

Relevant components at the workstation comprise operating system services 10, a containing information product 12, an information transport component or module 14, herein also referenced as a "transporter" which may be a stand-alone product or, in preferred embodiments is embedded or contained in the containing information product 12. Information transport component 14 provides a general purpose facility for sending and fetching information objects between an end user's computer (the client) and a central server. Information transport component 14 is not customized to the containing information product 12, but is intended to be used in conjunction with any of a wide range of electronic information products.

Operating system services 10 provide capabilities for the containing information product 12 and the information transport component 14 to access a readable information storage device 16 which may, for example, be an optical disk drive such as a read-only CD-ROM where product information 17 is stored. In addition, a read/write information storage device 18, for example, a conventional hard disk is accessed via the operating system services 10 for storage of a fetched additional information object 26. The storage media used for hard disks and the like are often described as nonvolatile and the type of storage is frequently referenced as "permanent." however, the more recently used term "persistent storage," which references the manner of storage as well as the physical storage media and distinguishes from transient storage where objects may be automatically erased after some interval, or event, without supervisory control or awareness of the erasure, is a more suitable descriptive term for the purposes of the present invention.

As necessary, different, or modified, information transporter components 14 can be supplied for users of different operating systems or system families, notably DOS (available in several versions, for example from Microsoft Corp, IBM Corporation, Novell, Inc.) Windows (trademark, Microsoft Corp.), Apple Computer Corp.'s operating systems, possibly IBM Corporation's OS/2 (trademark), and any distinct operating systems developed for personal digital assistants, pen-based computers and the like.

Information transport component 14 also uses operating system services 10 for external communication with a communications network 20 through which the information transport component 14 can access a remote server 22, or server-client network, supporting a data storage device 24 where desired additional information object 26 is located.

Communications network 20 can be any electronic distribution system suitable for transporting information objects 26 including wired and wireless common carriers such as telephone networks, cable television systems or networks and mobile telecommunications or data communications networks and extends also to emerging and future systems of providing electronic communication between users of diversified equipment. The term "common carrier" is used herein to embrace all such data communication systems as will reasonably meet the purposes of the invention. The term "modem" is used herein to embrace any network interface device enabling a user station to communicate on such a communications network 20.

While the containing information product 12 can take many different forms, as described herein, and as will also be apparent to those skilled in the art, a preferred embodiment is that of a periodically issuing publication or publications, for example, a news magazine or a collection of patents. Again, the additional information object 26 could be any information of interest to the user, having some relevance to the containing information product 12, but the invention and its unique capabilities enable the additional information object 24 to be fully integrated with the containing product 12 in a manner that can be automated to be transparent to the user.

The inventive information transport component 14 is designed to require a minimum of user input. A bare minimum will be a user's ID which can be entered by the user in a product setup and automatically accessed for information transport, or could by pre-loaded by the vendor from data supplied by the user at purchase.

A product ID is preferably pre-loaded into the containing information product 12 by the information product vendor or publisher to be available for use by the information transport component 14. However, even this may not be required. In an alternative embodiment, the product ID can be automatically incorporated into the product in a product replication process that permits individualized coding of unique ID's. In most cases, a user-actuated menu selection is provided in the containing information product 12 after integration with the inventive information transport component 14 to activate transport of an additional information object, and preferably, selection of transport activation drops down a menu of transport choices such as "FETCH UPDATE", "FETCH CATALOG OF UPDATES", "SEND DATA" and the like, each of which then runs automatically upon selection.

Updating can also be totally automatic, and other than an obviously desirable user notification, be completely invisible to or transparent to the user, running in background on their system, while the user's screen is available for other processing such as running the containing information product 12. Where updates are made available on a known schedule, a totally automated product can be provided that fetches an update without any user intervention, on the specified release date, or as soon thereafter as the user's system, or the containing information product 12, is activated. In practice, most users will probably prefer an opportunity to confirm that the fetch transaction should proceed. A preferred embodiment monitors the user's system clock and alerts a user to the arrival of an update release date and asks the user to confirm that the system should seek and fetch the scheduled update, if available.

Thus, the invention is particularly suitable for importing updates of information or information processing products, such as periodically issuing literature, or software upgrades. Accordingly, additional information object 24 preferably comprises updates which can be integrated with the information product 12 to provide, for example, a coherent body or continuous sequence of materials that can be commonly searched and indexed preferably in a manner giving the user the appearance of a common logical file formed from physically distinct files. The appearance of integration can be achieved by searching new and then old indexes in series and making the search and navigation logic of the containing product smart enough to combine new and old information. For example a new object can have an index file similar to that for the original information product 12. A search engine can first search the new index, then the old one, and then produce a combined set of results. Preferably, the files are not actually merged or otherwise combined as to do so could be unduly complex.

As shown in FIG. 1, the containing information product 12 comprises a user interface 28 enabling the user to view, search, excerpt and print or otherwise export or process selected information items from product information 17. The user interface 28 provides standard information product features, as conventionally supplied by the product publisher, supplemented by appropriate fetch or send options to activate the features of the inventive information transport component 14.

Also shown in FIG. 1 are a database management module 30 and a data structure definition module 32. Database management module 30 provides retrieval-oriented database processing of the information product including indexed searching and selective retrieval capabilities using one or more index keys such as an issue or item number, or full text searching, and may provide hypertext and hypermedia linkages. The data structure definition 32 provides the database structure of relevant files as classified by field or element, name, type, size and the like. After successful completion of a fetch operation, control is returned to containing information product 12 to process the new information in essentially the same manner as the original information, or in any other manner for which it has been equipped.

Major modules comprised in the inventive information transport component 14 are a user interface 34, a communications module 36 and fetch-send protocol 38. In addition, the information transport component 14 preferably comprises its own built-in application programming interfaces (APIs) such as a user interface API 40 and a communications API 42, enabling the information transport component 14's user interface and communications modules respectively, readily to be incorporated with, or plugged into a wide range of containing information products 14. Such incorporation, in the currently best known embodiment of the invention, is effected by software engineers familiar with and having access to the containing information product 12, but future developments may enable the incorporation process to be effected by skilled users.

References herein to an applications programming interface (API) will be understood to embrace any program interconnection technique which supports direct, seamless interaction between one program and another, including procedural calls, object encapsulation, or emerging techniques like Microsoft Corp.'s Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) or Apple Computer's Open Doc.

API 40 is responsible for providing means for the user to interact with the information transport functions of the invention and interface as seen by the user and API 42 is responsible for handling internal processes of communications and data management.

The APIs 40 and 42 are intended to enable the information transport component 14 to be used by a range of product programs controlling a variety of information products and to enable each API 40 and 42 to be free to exercise flexibility and creativity in extending its associated user interface 28, data management module 30 and database structure 32 to fully address the provision of transport functions for the purposes described herein.

API 42 operates on a transport function level involving high level interactions between the containing product 12 or the user (or the optional user interface) and the transporter 14 before and after communications while the detailed low-level interactions between the transporter client and the server during communications are handled by fetch-send protocol 38, without involvement of the containing product 12 or the user. "High level" is used to refer to a level at which software interacts with a user, typically in simple, readily comprehensible, function-oriented, graphic or everyday language terms, while "low-level" refers to a level of detailed procedural interaction with an operating system, or device (modem, port etc.) in obscure program or machine language terms incomprehensible to most users.

Fetch-send protocol 38 is, in the preferred embodiment shown, a component of a novel client-server communications procedure designed to manage the transaction-oriented transmissions required to achieve satisfactory transport of desired server stored information objects, and optionally, central reporting of user information in a predetermined format. Alternatively, one or more existing protocols could be used.

Preferably, the API's 40 and 42 and the fetch-send protocol 38 are structured to use a manifest list to control the exchange of information objects. The manifest list can be provided in fetch-send protocol 38, and can be forwarded to remote server 22 to provide better efficiency, error control, and management of the operation. Alternatively the manifest list may remain resident at the user's station. The manifest is valuable operating at the client station, at the API level, to specify the actions required during a transport session and can in one embodiment comprise a list of send and fetch operations which are individually controlled.

This software mechanism, employing novel communications procedures and applications interfaces that reference an object manifest, provides a new way for performing a wide variety of information exchange functions in a simple, standardized and economical manner.

API Functions

1) Product Setup

In preferred embodiments, API 40 and API 42 include a product setup routine of an application-specific configuration, which is used by the publisher or product developer, prior to publication, to establish seamless compatibility between the containing information product 12 and the information transport component 14 for smooth execution of desired transport functions. A completion status code is also specified.

The application-specific configuration posts user and product ID information, as needed to process password or other access code authentication and posts files information, including designation of an application work directory and a transporter work directory for performing the transporter functions of information transport component 14.

Additionally, the application-specific configuration sets up an appropriate decompression (or compression for send objects) technique according to the expected format and condition of fetched information objects 46, which information is pre-coded into communications component 36.

The application-specific configuration established through API 40 selects either a standard user interface, as furnished with information transport component 14, or an application-controlled user interface. Control settings are established for connection problem handling, disk error handling, abort and server condition handling, access denial, unavailability of information object files and any other error situations which may occur during transport.

If desired, optional, advanced controls for scheduled automatic calling can be included in the application-specific configuration used in preparing the containing information product 12 for publication.

Preparation of containing information product 12 and incorporation of information transport component 14 therein, with an application specific configuration, as described is carried out prior to publication to build a customized, ready to run version of the product with automated update capability.

Communications API 42 establishes a product-specific transport method choice list for selection of an appropriate file transfer protocol as between direct dial, data network dial, and other modes of transport. Communications protocols specify necessary connection parameters such as access number and network addressing or other routing information. Optional script choices can provide for different modes of transport.

These product-specific configurations and protocols enable information transport component 14 to be packaged in executable form with containing information product 12, with all necessary product-specific components and settings, including a standard user interface if selected, ready for inclusion in the product package.

If desired, at the option of the information product publisher, a standard user interface may be included. Such an optional standard user interface can have all facilities needed to select transportable objects from a predefined list, perform all user setup functions, and invoke information object transport.

Additional options are standard software that would allow the user to search, view and print the transported objects totally independently of the user interface and database search components of the containing product. Both such options enable a publisher to exploit the inventive transport product for efficiently and economically providing updates without having to make changes to the publisher's containing product, simply by configuring the transporter or information transport component 14 and physically including it, and the optional components, within the containing product.

A standard viewer might handle only ASCII text, but it preferably could provide for other useful formats such as standard word processor, spreadsheet or database formats, or multimedia formats such as video, sound and HTML (hypertext markup language), a format becoming popular on the Internet and which provides the ubiquitous Web pages for the Internet's World Wide Web.

API Functions

2) User Setup

Compatibility with the user's system is effected by API 40 establishing a user-specific configuration, and creating or updating the necessary control files.

Parameters established in the user-specific configuration include a setup ID number to permit use of multiple setups, for example, for different transport options, and a product ID number.

The user-specific configuration posts user ID information and a password or other access code authentication and posts files information, including disk and drive designation for work and data directories. Autocall options and a completion status code are also specified.

API 40 provides information for communications module 36, specifying a user communications protocol for the user's hardware, operating system, line configuration, and so on. Thus, for a standard telephone connection, comm port, speed (baud rate), interrupt settings, modem type and control strings, dial prefix, dial 9, pulse or tone, call waiting shut-off, and the like are specified, as appropriate. Additionally, the user communications protocol includes access number and connection parameters, optionally with script selection for routing choices via data networks, and so on.

The resultant user-specific configuration and communications protocols generated through API 40 create a setup ready to call and places it in the designated transporter work area. A validation procedure checks entries and reports obvious errors in parameter settings.

Preferably, multiple product ID setups are provided to enable multiple information products to use the transporter with an appropriate, compatible transporter version. Preferably also, the user-specific configuration accommodates shared use of the transporter work areas by multiple information product applications resident on the same user's system.

Mechanism of Fetch-send Protocols 38 (User) and 44 (Server)

User fetch-send protocol 38 working in cooperation with server fetch-send protocol 44 controls the desired information object transport function, calling remote server 22 and exchanging data objects. It performs or supervises communications between the user's system and remote server 22.

Communications module 36 uses a setup ID number specified through API 40 or 42, selects which setup to use for a call, calls remote server 22 using protocol 38, and in a preferred embodiment, sends an object manifest comprising a send object list, a fetch object list or both. Such manifest is created under control of user interface 28 from a pre-existing set of choices supplied with the product or obtained during previous update operations, or both.

Alternatively fetch-send protocol 38 may refer to a pre-existing manifest list stored at the user's station, or may be directed by remote server 22 to select one of multiple pre-existing manifest lists stored at the user's station. As another alternative, although it is convenient and advantageous to transmit the manifest list to the server 22, the relevant status and management information can simply be used locally by communications module 36 and be integrated into the individual fetch and send protocols.

A send object list comprises object action codes specifying the type of server action required, if any, object names, object sizes and response object size, if any. A fetch object list comprises object names, object sizes and an object availability date.

A completed object manifest is employed to convey the status of the transport operation and to provide for additional information transport, if desired. The completed object manifest adds the following to the request object manifest: send object additional information; object acceptance codes returned by server 22; time of acceptance; and a response object name, if called for by the object action code.

For a fetch operation, the completed object manifest adds the following to the request object manifest: fetch object additional information; a fetch confirmation or failure code; the time of completion or failure and a revised availability date if the requested fetch object was unavailable.

If a scheduled update or polling option is present and selected, a scheduling or polling indicator is included, and a completion of processing or import function to call through API 42 is specified.

A completion status code terminates the fetch or send operation and returns control to the information product application or the provided user interface.

Information Transport Using Communications Module 36

Communications module 36 employing the described fetch-send mechanism comprised by cooperating protocols 38 and 44 performs the functions necessary to complete an information transport operation, as described herein, under a variety of circumstances, with tolerance for a common range of error conditions, open drives, inadequate disk space, lost line connections and the like, without losing control of the user's system. Using correct, verified ID, naming and routing information, the information transport operation employing the inventive information transport component 14 is less error-prone than many computer users would be were they effecting the transport operation with conventional technology requiring them to enter routing and storage information and the like, manually.

Communications module 36 verifies that all send objects are as specified, that all fetch objects are scheduled to be available, verifies that sufficient disk space is available for all fetch objects and for compressed transmission copies of all objects, and returns an error report if any of these requirements is not fulfilled.

Communications module 36 performs communications, then returns a completed object manifest, and logs all activity in a transporter log file. If an optional scheduling/polling feature is selected, the communication is deferred until the scheduled time.

These general objectives are achieved by carrying out the following process steps after an application (or optionally a transporter user interface) requests a transport function:

1) Local validation of the request returning a failure code if the request is improperly specified.

2) Compression of all send objects for transmission and placing them in the designated transporter work area.

3) Connection attempts to remote server 22, returning a failure code if necessary. Connections are made via phone line or network. The system handshakes and identifies the call to the server.

4) Presentation of the object manifest, if utilized, for validation and action.

5) On receiving a go-ahead, transport of each send object, logging each as sent, and receipt of object acceptance codes from the server and logs them, when received.

6) Receipt of all fetch objects from the server, placing them in the transporter work area, and logs them as received. Fetch object names may be precise, or generic or alias names may be used to request a latest installment.

7) Receipt and logging of a completed object manifest from the server. (If receipt of response objects is implied by the action codes, first receives a revised object manifest, and fetches the response objects, then receives the completed object manifest.)

8) Disconnection from server.

9) Decompression and unpacking of all fetch objects into application work area, and logs completion status.

10) Returns control to the application (or optional transporter user interface).

The product checks the completion code, and completed object manifest to deal with any error conditions. The application performs any required import processing on fetched objects to integrate the data and indexes with prior data, as desired, to enable seamless use. If desired, import processing can include, or offer as a user selection, file maintenance functions relevant to the information product including, for example, file purging to remove obsolete information files and preserve the user's storage space. Specifications of files to be deleted can be included with the original product or with a fetch object. In either event the responsibility for accurate specification is passed to the vendor, relieving the user of the risk of making erroneous deletions and anxiety attendant thereon. After such import processing the containing information product (or the optional separate user interface) then returns control to the user for use of the received data.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the identification of files in the object manifest, or for file maintenance functions as the user station, or for any other purpose of the invention, can be effected generically, for example by using wild card characters, as is customary in file specification, and which effectively permits multiple objects to be specified as a class related by file name characteristics, or related individually, thereby providing options for specifying of such class of multiple objects to proceed at one time or in a series of transports over time. Other algebraical identification methods can be used which may reference object versions in series or comparable characteristics.

The foregoing steps are illustrated in the flow block diagram of FIG. 2. When containing information product 12 issues an information transport call 51, setup filter 52 runs setup routine 54 if this is a first call and no information transport setup was run on installation of containing information product 12. At block 56, an object manifest is retrieved for pre-transport preparation at block 58. After prepping, a call to server 22 is established at block 60 and when the connection is made, and a handshake performed, one or more objects is transported at block 62.

After completion of transport and receipt of a completion manifest, server 22 is disconnected at block 64, received objects are decompressed and unpacked at block 66 and stored in a designated disk storage location at block 68. Object storage triggers containing information product 12's import processing to assimilate the information update with the original information product at block 70, following which a completion report is issued at 72 and control is returned to the containing information product 12 at 74.

Optional Schedule Function

An optional transport function module for scheduled or poll-responsive information object transport can be provided to defer the fetching of an update or to defer another information transport operation to a specified later time, or until called by the server.

The optional transport function schedules a request, waits, then automatically performs the transport operation at the scheduled time. In polling mode, it activates (and, if necessary, interrupts and then reactivates) the user station's ability to receive calls.

Mechanics of the optional transport function include a request for an ID number, an indicator for calling or polling mode and a schedule iterating a call time, a retry protocol, call activation and timing, along with an authentication procedure for the server and a completion status code.

Client-server Communications Protocol

Communications between the information transport component 14, functioning as a client, and the server 22 follow a predefined communications procedure having cooperative user components comprising user fetch-send protocol 38 and server fetch-send protocol 44.

Server-client intercommunication can be broken down into five steps, a) login, b) manifest transmission, c) send operation, d) fetch operation and e) logout, as described in more detail below.

a) Login

Login establishes a session with an authorized client. A handshake process between user protocol 38 and server protocol 44 identifies the user's transporter client system to remote server 22 by product ID and user ID, and a password or other authentication code. A failure reason code is given to rejected clients.

b) Manifest Transmission

Preferably, via user protocol 38, the user system issues an information object transport request manifest to server 22. Server 22 verifies its ability to meet the request by returning a manifest acknowledgment specifying which elements will be processed and provides reason codes for declined elements. Alternatively, as stated previously, manifest functions can be listed in individual send and fetch protocols.

c) Send Operation

If the user system outputs a send object, through information transport component 14 and protocol 38, server 22 receives and accepts the send objects and stores them, identified by product ID and user ID. Error control and retry mechanisms are employed and successful receipt of the send object is acknowledged and logged.

If the action code calls for a response object, the server obtains necessary processing from a pre-designated external source (corresponding to the product ID and action code) and returns the response as a fetch object, called a response object.

d) Fetch Operation

The server obtains requested fetch objects by product ID and object name and forwards them to the transporter at the user. Error control and retry mechanisms are employed and successful transmissions are acknowledged and logged.

e) Logout The server transmits the completed object manifest to the transporter, confirms and logs receipt, and ends the session.

The Inventive Transporter Compared with a Conventional Communications Product

FIGS. 5 and 6 illustrate schematically the simplicity and ease-of-use benefits the invention provides FIG. 6 to a user 100 in fetching an information object from a remote server 22 as compared with the use of a conventional communications product (FIG. 5), such, for example, as CENTRAL POINT COMMUTE (trademark) or PROCOM (trademark).

In the prior art embodiment of FIG. 5, many operations require active participation by the user who, for example, must at least initiate any pre-transport preparation 104 of the information object, such as checking the specifications, checking work space available to store a fetched object and conducting any other preliminary checks. The user has to activate a communications product 102, specify a call route, and after the call connection is established, specify the objects and initiate a transport operation. Communications product 102, operating in a cooperative manner with remote server 22, will execute establish call connection 60 after the call route (phone number) has been specified and will execute transport objects 62 after the objects to be transported are specified by the user. Disconnection 64 is usually effected by a user executing a call termination command, which if the user is inattentive, or inefficient, may be delayed longer than necessary to complete the transport operation, running up unnecessary line or air time charges.

After completion of the transport operations, user 100 has to deactivate the communications product 102 and then initiate any required storing and processing of the fetched product 106. While some of these steps may be automated via one or more batch files, scripts or macros, a vendor of a containing information product 12 has great difficulty in furnishing such a batch file or macro for a mass market distribution because of the different systems and communications products encountered in a mass market, which systems and products have a variety of different specifications, performance characteristics and unique, incompatible scripting languages.

Equally, while some more skilled users 100 might be able to write their own batch files without undue difficulty to automate some of these steps. Many users will lack the ability or the inclination to do so. Also the effort would not be justified for a single transport operation. Nor is the result of such efforts likely to match the ease and simplicity of the results achieved by the present invention which enables even a first update to be obtained effortlessly with the software running in unattended mode, after initiation.

FIG. 6 clearly shows how the inventive information transport component 14 relieves user 100 of many tedious communication functions such as activating a communications product, specifying a call route, specifying the objects to be transported and deactivating the communications product. In addition, preferred embodiments of the invention also relieve the user of optional pre-transport preparation 104 and execution of store-and-process-fetched-product 106 if these functions are appropriate to the containing information product.

Referring to FIG. 6, user 100 selects a transport operation from a user interface screen in containing information product 12, whereupon the latter calls information transport component 14 to activate transport. Information transport component 14 implements any necessary pre-transport preparation 104 and then, employing its own communications module 36, and server fetch-send protocol 44, proceeds in unattended mode, without requiring user intervention to establish call connection 60, to execute transport object 62 and automatically perform a disconnect 64, as described herein.

Automatic transport control and disconnection is a useful feature of the invention providing economy of line or air time charges and reducing congestion on the communications carrier. Using conventional communications products, (especially with online services) the duration of the connection may be unnecessarily extended by the delays and potential errors inherent in user control, resulting in increased communications costs and failures. The inventive transporter 14 provides software control of the connection duration, enabling it to be confined to a period sufficient to effect said unattended object transfer, enhancing efficient use of the communications medium.

Also as described, the operation can be monitored or controlled by employing an object manifest and is facilitated by the use of pre-specified addresses and transport characteristics. After satisfactorily completing the transport, the information transport component 14 automatically deactivates and returns control to containing information product 12, preferably with a satisfactory completion report which containing information product 12 notifies to user 100 through the containing information product 125 user interface.

If the transport object 62 was a product update, optionally a store-and-process-of-fetched-object 106 is initiated by information transport component 14 and execution of the store and process operation may be passed to the containing information product 12. The user can now use the updated product.

As FIG. 6 shows, when read, in comparison with FIG. 5, the invention enables a user 100 to be relieved of all duties save for minimal selection and notification functions, while no complex added functionality is demanded of containing information product 12. Optional store-and-processor-fetched-object 106 is contemplated as requiring only minimal modification of existing containing information product 12 functions while other more complex procedural and detailed transport related functions are handled by the information transport component 14.

Some non-limiting examples illustrative of practical commercial and industrial applications of the invention will now be described.

EXAMPLE 1

A News Magazine Distributed on CD-ROM

Some weekly news magazines offer subscriptions to a quarterly CD-ROM which contains multimedia material plus a searchable full-text database of the most recent quarter's weekly magazine issues and enabling application software. Newer issues are not provided until the next quarterly disc is mailed. Accordingly the CD-ROM electronic magazine product steadily becomes out of date and its value lessens.

The invention incorporates an information transport component 14 with a news magazine product stored on a CD-ROM 16, to enable a user to fetch an information object 46 in the form of new issues (and their associated search indexes) from a remote server 22, as they become available, for example weekly. The fetched updates are stored on a consumer's computer hard disk storage device 24. Because of the size of rich content multimedia files, the updates are limited to text material including full texts of interim issues and associated files such as indexes. Because it knows the storage location of the updates, the next CD-ROM issue can include, as an install option, or upon first access, a request to delete the old now-outdated updates from hard disk 24, creating space for new updates.

User interface 28 in conjunction with user interface 34 contains code providing a menu selection enabling a user to activate the update fetch operation and then to provide integrated or seamless access to the combined data, searching both the hard disk storage device 24 and the CD, using both sets of indexes, so that the contents are viewable as a single collection, although an additional independent searching/viewing function for the updates could be provided, if desired.

A product setup routine adapts the information transport component 14 to work with the news magazine CD-ROM's existing software for creation of a user interface, searching and viewing. Communications options may be limited to direct telephone dial only. A simple user interface addition controls a setup process allowing the user to enter a unique user ID, provided with each copy of the CD-ROM distribution disk, and to create predetermined work areas on the user's hard disk.

A schedule of updates with names, dates, and files sizes is provided in the containing news magazine product on the CD-ROM and is accessed via user interface 28 in conjunction with user interface 34 to create a fetch object manifest 48. Optionally, user interface 28 in conjunction with user interface 34 creates a send object manifest 48 to control transport of user demographics for market analysis or for renewals, or the like, in the opposite direction from the user to the server, with the send operation being triggered whenever the next transport operation is activated, or optionally, by allowing the user to trigger it.

A fetched information object 46, such as an update, is automatically decompressed and stored on hard disk storage device 18 as additional information object 26 for integration with the original CD-ROM product so that the user can view both the update and the original issues, and run searches across the entire collection.

Optionally, initial location of additional information object 26 may be an application work area location on storage device 18, and communications component 36 may be pre-set to pass control via API 42 to database management module 30 which will do further processing to integrate additional objects in accordance with the existing database structure 32 to provide a more complete level of integration permitting, for example, viewing of combined menus, nullification of obsoleted items, and cross-linking of hypertext elements.

If a send object has been prepared and included in the object manifest, such as a send object containing user information entered during the install process, or subscription request information obtained from the user, it is sent to server 22 to be stored and identified by product and user ID for appropriate action in due course. Acknowledgment of receipt of the send object is noted by communications component 36 and passed back to the user if such provision is made in user interface 28.

Both the fetch and send operations are closed ended in the sense of being operations that are pre-described in the original information product and once triggered, can be completed without human intervention of any kind.

To service the automated update facility running at the user's workstation, remote server 22 is set up to accept calls from valid user ID's, and is loaded with new issue text and index files, in the form of update information object 46, according to a publication schedule.

EXAMPLE 2

Open-ended Fetch of a Supplementary News Magazine Object

Open-ended access to supplemental information objects not described in the original information product can be obtained by providing in the original product means to fetch a directory of added features. This can be used, for example, by a news magazine publisher to provide special news features on an unplanned basis, or each weekly issue could be packaged with a directory of additional features available. The user first specifies a fetch of the new directory, or receives it along with a fetched update they have specified from a user interface menu, and then views the fetched additional features directory and initiates a fetch of a selected additional item or items in a second information object transport operation, using an information object manifest built from the new features directory.

The original, containing product news magazine CD-ROM user interface 28 preferably has provision for importing and viewing any information objects listed on a completed fetch manifest and delivered by the information transport component 14 into the designated work areas. Alternatively, a standard information transport component 14 user interface 34 can be used to provide this function in a less integrated form.

EXAMPLE 3

Retail Catalog on CD-ROM with Merchandise Order Entry at the Server

Multimedia product catalogs with 800 ordering numbers are now available on CD-ROM and also with pre-installed software packages on new computer hard disks. In this example, the multimedia (or text and graphic) product catalog is a read-only information product 17 which can be furnished with an information transport component 14 according to the invention, to facilitate order placement from such electronic product catalogs providing an easier order placing process than has heretofore been possible. Employing the inventive information transport component 14, a catalog vendor can enable a customer to place the order directly, via modem, without requiring a voice call and ensuing verbal product identification, by pointing and clicking a "Place Order" or "Mark for Order" button on the user's computer screen. The order is transported to remote server 22 using the novel information transport component 14. Preferably a verification routine is included, requiring order confirmation with a user-supplied password, and possibly keying of the total amount to prevent unauthorized or inadvertent product ordering, for example by children.

Order fulfillment is effected by processing of the information in due course after receipt by the remote server 22 and any additional information required centrally is collected during product setup and held locally for transmission with an order. For example, setup can capture the user's charge card information, shipping address, and the like and create a header for an electronic order form.

When the user clicks the "Mark Order" button, procedures supplied with the user interface 28, as modified through user interface API 40, add order item identification information to an 25 electronic order form. When the user clicks the "Place Order" button, user interface 28 triggers a transport request to server 22, to include the order form as a send information object 46. Transport of the send object, including the order form, from the user's station to the server is executed employing an object manifest 48, as described herein.

If not located at a vendor's or merchant's premises, server 22 can forward received electronic orders to the merchant for fulfillment, at appropriate intervals, via a vendor link 50.

This simple, low cost mechanism for automated order placement, can complement telephone ordering but lacks the credit-checking and inventory status capabilities that are frequently provided by phone. However, such a catalog application could allow the user to request the fetching of an inventory and price update object for use prior to the preparation of an order.

EXAMPLE 4

Merchandise Order Processing and Confirmation Retail Catalog on CD-ROM

A powerful electronic merchandising tool can be provided by providing the user with a full-function order generating capability and employing transporter 14 to transmit a user-created merchandise order, effortlessly and seamlessly, to a remote order-processing server. To this end, server 22 should be interfaced to the necessary merchant processing services for checking and reporting credit and inventory status.

An additional valuable option enables the system to apply pre-specified user instructions, previously obtained through user interface 28, to determine whether out-of-stock items are to be dropped, back-ordered, or substituted in color or other aspect. This information can be added to the electronic order form object, listed in object manifest 48 and become the subject of a further transport dialog between the user's station and server 22. In this manner a sophisticated purchase transaction is completed in a substantially unattended manner (save for deciding about back orders off-line), in as much as the customer does not have to maintain a phone conversation, while fully achieving the capabilities of telephone order placement. A further user benefit can be obtained by the providing a permanent record of the transaction (a stored electronic file) without user intervention. This not possible with telephone ordering.

This novel, automated, modem driven, order placement system effectively shields a merchant from having to deal with the problems of establishing communications with a mass of unknown end user computer systems, while automating the process and relieving the merchant of the costs of telephone sales staff. This aspect of the invention is valuable in avoiding troublesome, support intensive, communications which are subject to rapid technical change as new products are absorbed into the marketplace. In contrast, the merchant's special purpose vendor link 50 to the server 22, can remain relatively stable, while the customer interface at server 22, depending upon the sophistication and universality of the API's 40 and 42, and also upon any emergent communications standards, can be adapted to accommodate a range of future products.

EXAMPLE 5

Further Applications of the Invention

Locked Information Products

As discussed in the "BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION" hereinabove, some vendors, for example Microsoft Corporation, distribute information products in locked, inaccessible form, accompanied by (user-accessible) promotional information and demo versions. The prospective purchaser then calls an 800 number to order the product and is given a code which is entered to unlock the item for use. The inventive information transport component 14 and cooperative server component 22, can be used to simplify this process, and eliminate the voice call.

The information transport component 14 is used to place the order and as a subsequent step concomitant with satisfaction of the merchants purchase requirements (payment, etc) can, employing a suitable line entry or entries in the object manifest 48, fetch the access code, as an information object 46, in the same way as an order acknowledgment or other information update. The user interface and data management components of the distribution CD, or original information product, can be programmed automatically to use the code to unlock the product.

Employing the novel, digital, modem-enabled communications products of the invention, more sophisticated access codes than are suitable for verbalizing to a caller, can be used, and may include small programs or decompression utilities (although these would better be stored in the locked product), or customer-specific coding employing user-derived information. Thus, as a safeguard against fraud, being equipped with specific user or user product information, the access code can be a key or product uniquely matched to the user's locked product copy.

Computer Software Updates: For distribution of updates to software products, the original distribution version of the software product can provide registered users with an appropriate ID code and update schedule. Should the revision be delayed, a revised schedule can be fetched.

Tax or other governmental filings and exchanges: An example of the generality of the inventive information transport system for sending and fetching well-defined information objects of many kinds is in the filing of tax returns. A send information object can be created and manifested to submit electronic tax filings to the IRS, as described above, for electronic product order forms. A fetch object can be created to obtain updated tax forms and the program logic relating to them, and to get information on new regulations. Analogous uses will be apparent to those skilled in the relevant arts of, for example, financial planning and portfolio management systems, to obtain current statistics, place orders, and the like.

Packaging of Transporter with User Interface/Database Search Software Facilities

In a modified embodiment, the inventive information transport component 14 is integrated with a general purpose user interface/database search (UI/DB) software package and tools. Such packages and tools, sometimes referred to as "authoring packages", are now used to produce CD-ROM's and similar information products. Thus a single UI/DB product may contain the inventive information transport component 14, and be supplied to publishers to be used to develop a family or diversity of information products, as a standard tool box.

A combination of the inventive information transporter product with such UI/DB products could facilitate development of applications by allowing much of the work of integrating a containing product's user interface 28 and database functions 30 and 32 (which could be controlled through the UI/DB product) with the inventive information transport component 14 to be performed once, in advance, by a UI/DB software vendor's skilled specialists, for use in a diverse range of products using that vendor's software. Such integrated offering would be advantageous to both the software vendor (by enriching its offering) and to the software vendor's publisher-customers by facilitating the desired function.

Electronic Product Distribution Service

In a valuable application of the novel electronic information transport products of the invention, remote server 22 can be operated to provide an electronic data product distribution service for multiple containing information products 12, each equipped with an information transport component 14, the whole facility providing a complete network distribution service, including network, technical and end-user support. Provision of such a distribution service is greatly facilitated by the novel transporter 14, described herein, the use of which for each vended product greatly simplifies the problems of handling updates to multiple products. However, such a novel service could also be operated with conventional software communications products by relying upon users of each to execute an appropriate sequence of menu selection and command line instructions to obtain an update by modem via their own pre-existing communications software. Similarly, While special advantages of seamless user adoption and integration into an original product accrue from the use of the inventive transporter to distribute product updates, such a distribution service can be used with advantage to distribute any type of electronic information product.

For many publishers (and for providers of UI/DB authoring software) the task of operating a publicly available server 22, and of supplying associated technical support to a wide base of customers using a diversity of communications products, even with the simplification benefits provided by the inventive transport product, is a task requiring specialized skills and staffing that a publisher, even one experienced in electronic publishing, will generally lack. Such a specialist capability is intimidating to provide and difficult to cost-justify for the limited number of information products that one publisher can supply.

By providing a new turnkey service or service bureau a specializing, skilled vendor would enable the publisher to avoid such burden. A provider of such a novel service can spread the costs of such operational activities and skilled staff across a large number of publishers and information products, achieving economies of scale and specialization.

The inventive information transport products extend to software implemented at server 22, or at one or more clients or satellite servers, of a network served by server 22, to provide the server-location functions of such an electronic product distribution service. Such distribution software can be separately marketed to publishers or UI/DB vendors who wish to operate such a service.

Gatewayed, "Open" Server

Example 4, above, shows how information transporter 14, as well as server 22 can remain simple yet provide a highly general and extensible service. In that example, server 22 provides the functionality of a general-purpose transaction gateway or interface to an external function processor. In this particular case, the external function processor gatewayed by server 22 via vendor link 50, is the merchant's order processing system, which receives the order, determines its disposition, and responds with order status information which is relayed back to server 22 for return to the customer as a response object in accord with protocols 38 and 44. The user need not be aware of such complexities, nor do the client transport components 14 of the inventive product need to be aware of, or provide information for remote routing via vendor link 50. Only the server 22 needs this information, and server 22 needs only to know that send objects with names that fall within a specified class for a specified product ID, must be forwarded to a specified external processor, and that the corresponding responses from that processor must be routed back to an originating client as response objects. Thus the inventive information transport component 14, by virtue of its simplicity has general applicability and many uses, as described herein and as will further be apparent to those skilled in the art.

In implementing an ordering service using the inventive information transport component 14, order and response objects are preferably formatted by the containing information product 12 to be consistent with existing or future electronic data interchange (EDI) standards which define protocols and formats for data interchange between customers and vendors. The information transport component 14 and the server protocol 44 provide the low-level EDI transport functions and are independent of object content defined by higher layers of the EDI protocol. Preferably, the server has added routing layer information to move objects to and from the external processor.

To provide a suitable EDI-compatible function, server 22 can be programmed with such higher layer EDI routing data for its exchanges with the merchant's external processor. Employing such a gatewayed system, a single EDI network connection can be used to connect the server 22 to a large number of different merchant processors anywhere in the world, across wide area networks and links between same, for example Internet.

This concept of an "open" server, providing a gatewayed pathway for information objects to travel between a wide base of users and one or more remote vendors or other object sources is greatly facilitated, or enabled, by employment of the inventive transporter 14 which effectively provides a protocol translation function enabling a simple information transport service to be offered which is easy and economical to use, both for the end user and the vendor or information supplier. Such a transport service compares favorably, for its intended information transport purposes with broader function and more complex of full online services, such as COMPUSERVE (trademark), and the like, described hereinabove.

Further Embodiments with Broadcast, Subscription Delivery and On-demand Capabilities

Receipt of broadcast data: As an alternative to modem-based wireline or wireless calling to a server and requesting data objects, the information transporter system of this invention can be beneficially employed in a broadcast information distribution system wherein data information objects are contained within a broadcast data stream with recipient communications devices tuned to identify and receive from the broadcast specific data elements to which they are entitled. On the Internet, such broadcasting to a selected group of recipients is called "multicasting."

Broadcasting can be airwave broadcasting via satellite, FM, or TV subchannels in the manner, for example, used by Mainstream Data Ltd. for the broadcast of news wires. Alternatively, the broadcast data stream may be cable or line transmitted, for example, over cable television systems. Minor extensions to API's 40 and 42 could accommodate such a facility. A modified setup function could alert a user's receiving communications device to watch for receipt of data objects identified as relating to the original or containing information product, and to capture and hold identified objects in temporary storage. A schedule transport function can then be set to fetch the received data objects from temporary storage and prepare them for use.

Subscription delivery: Although the invention has been described as being particularly applicable to the solution of problems arising in distributing updates of original or previously purchased or delivered electronic information products, those skilled in the art will appreciate that, many of the benefits of the invention can be obtained without any initial information content being delivered to the user with the original product. The user could simply receive the information transporter 14 and all product information could be received subsequently, after installing the information transporter 14, in the form of fetch objects transmitted from a remote server or other suitable source. For example, a newsletter service could provide a disk with the transporter and a user interface, but with no initial information content. As the transporter 14, operating at the user stations, automatically fetches new issues according to the newsletter schedule, the information is, in effect, pushed down a channel from the distribution server for delivery to the base of subscribing users.

Information-on-demand services: In another embodiment, providing an information product on demand service, vendors can freely distribute a novel electronic marketing product comprising a transporter on diskette, along with a simple user interface and a catalog of information product items available from the vendor, without including the products themselves. Such an electronic marketing product could be distributed through the mail, as a magazine insert giveaway, or through any other suitable marketing medium. The transporter could be activated at any time by the user to call in and fetch a cataloged product, as well as a current catalog, possibly after sending a credit card order form, or the product price could be paid to the vendor by obtaining the product from a 900 number providing vendor reimbursement from the telephone network.

Open Architecture Online Service Access

In a further aspect, the invention provides an information transport component 14 that functions as universal or generic client interface software, enabling a user client to work with any one or more of many online server-based information distribution services.

Many online information distribution services used to disseminate electronic publications comprise intelligent user interfaces which employ a client component running on a customer's personal computer (PC) to communicate with a central server facility operated by the online service, by means of a proprietary protocol. The client interface packages are proprietary to a particular online service.

Prospective publishers wishing to offer electronic products online, contract with online service providers to enable customers to use the online service's client software to access the publisher's material and related online communications services (bulletin boards, etc.) on the services' servers. The publisher is limited to using the presentation facilities provided by the user interface in the online service's client software. This limitation impedes migration of publisher offerings and makes it difficult for either a customer or a publisher to swing information transport component 14 access from one service provider to another because each service requires its own software package.

Third party interface developers cannot contribute to such online interfaces for a publisher without the cooperation of the online service provider which may be difficult or impossible to obtain. Accordingly, only limited user interfaces with moderate sophistication and variety can be offered.

Accordingly in another aspect, to provide open architecture online service communication, the inventive information transport component 14 can be embodied as a flexible client interface which can be actuated to operate with any one of a number of online services by providing a generic client interface foundation API (application program interface) combined with a set of translators and protocol drivers capable of communicating the user's functional requests to any one of a set of online services, using their corresponding proprietary protocols.

In this aspect the invention permits publishers to develop highly sophisticated and individualized user interfaces independently of the limitations of the online service providers' capabilities. Such enhanced user interfaces are attractive to publishers seeking differentiation of their products by providing an appealing individualized interface with a signature look and feel. In contrast, online service providers seeking to economically carry content from many publishers provide generic interfaces acceptable to all.

By incorporating operational translators for a number of online service protocols, which translators fully adhere to the detailed specifications of each protocol, a multi-service capability can be provided.

Online services generally provide similar types of services with nearly standard functions and similar user interfaces. Major service types include bulletin board, chat, electronic mail, document browsing, and database search. Use of creative typography, layout, graphics, and other artistic elements to offer the presentation quality and variety typical of print media is desired by publishers using this medium.

The invention facilitates this end by providing open development platforms for development of advanced interfaces while shielding developers from the complex details of communication with an online server. The shielding is accomplished by providing an API which supports communications service requests at a simple functional request level.

Referring to FIG. 3, multiple targeted online services 80, can be accessed by a client interface 82 comprising any of multiple graphical user interfaces 84 driving a generic API 86 which works with plug-in translator/communicator modules 88 which are provided to communicate one to each targeted online service 80. Modules 88 mimic the online service's protocols, so as to be essentially indistinguishable from the proprietary interfaces normally used. A communications manager 90 receives input from API 86 and outputs through protocol mapper 92 which selects the appropriate protocol.

In this embodiment, for use with full-function online services, the functions of API 86 and protocol 88 are extended to support extended, open-ended interactive sessions and the more varied client-server interaction needs of session-oriented interactive online applications such as bulletin board posting and browsing, online chat, electronic mail, database and menu browsing, and database search.

Similarly, in the aspect shown in FIG. 3, the invention can be provided with the same kind of additional flexibility with regard to the user's connection to server 22 as the invention can provide for more basic fetch and send functions. While the inventive client server protocol 38 and 44 is particularly suited to the functions described, other existing or future services and corresponding protocols could be used, if necessary with adaptation, to provide workable services for use in conjunction with transport component 14. Such use may require modification of communications module 36 and protocol 38 by the addition of a protocol mapper 92 and appropriate server protocol plug-in 88 to communicate to an alternative server.

In either case, such added flexibility in use of the inventive product increases a publisher's choices in selecting server and network facilities through which to distribute information products, and enables the publisher to offer fully customized user interfaces for use with multiple, or any one of multiple server and network services which do not provide for such customization. In this embodiment of the inventive transport component, a containing product can offer a unique custom interface and provide for access to additional information products from such varied source facilities as the Internet, full function online services, emerging groupware network services, conventional bulletin board systems, and future network services using wireless or cable television technology.

While the invention can provide a flexible, generic API, in some circumstances, an existing third-party API designed for use with a single specific online service can be combined with an embedded transporter and server protocol mapper to allow products designed to use the third-party API to employ any of multiple servers for distribution, avoiding commercial distribution restraints associated with that API, for example use of a particular server.

The inventive protocol mapper 92 can insulate a containing information product from the variations among such services, and can allow a single such information product to be transported through a variety of such services, and to later be moved to other such services by simply selecting an alternative protocol mapper. Multiple such protocol mappers can be packaged within a given information product to permit alternatives to be selected by the end-user from a list. Thus the invention further permits information products and related UI/DB authoring tools to be service-independent and neutral.

FIG. 4 provides an overview of the use of the inventive client interface accessing multiple publications via multiple remote online services, as well as multiple locally mounted data sources and storing additional retrieved data locally.

Enhancements can enable a publisher's service to provide integrated, seamless access to content distributed over several different online services; to seamlessly combine access to both online and local CD-ROM-based content; and to coexist with and share resources with other publishers' services on the user's PC.

In summary, the invention provides, in this aspect, a simple, easy-to-use multi-protocol capability that enables an electronic information object to be transported from a publisher to a wide base of users by any one of a number of online services, without sacrificing individual product identity.

Recursive Updating of the Transporter

Another application of the inventive information transport product, or transporter, is a recursive use to update itself, in the same manner that the transporter can update a containing information product. This method can be useful in a variety of ways, including to upgrade the transporter by the addition of new protocol components, new compression techniques, or new network access methods.

An important class of such self-updates is to provide added flexibility in specifying network access procedures. For example, the user setup routine could be extended into a two stage process. In a first stage, each user's transporter calls in to a common pre-set phone number, in order to fetch a second phone number selected according to the user's particular product, location, or some other parameter. The second phone number, or other address, can then placed in the setup as an update, to be used in subsequent transport operations.

This two-stage method can provide efficient use of a single pre-set toll-free 800 number for an initial call from any number of different products, which initial call yields a second number corresponding to a specific Product ID, which number is used for subsequent calls.

In an advantageous embodiment, the second number is not toll free and may include vendor charges, in the manner of a 900 number. This arrangement enables a system in which users do not pay for initial setup calls (and any failed connections which might result from initial setup problems), but do pay long-distance toll charges, and per call vendor fees if the publisher so desires, for subsequent product information transport from the second number. This two-number process can be carried out without requiring any phone number entry or selection by the user. Additionally, the second number can readily be changed whenever desired by the publisher, even after product discs have been shipped.

User's Station

References herein to a user's station, workstation, computer or terminal will be understood to embrace any "information appliance" or intelligent device having the basic computer-like functions of programmed logic, storage and presentation, or having the ability to support an operating system for managing user input-output with a processor, including intelligent cable television controllers, video game players, information kiosks, wired and wireless personal communicators, and even system controllers such as automotive computers.

Benefits Provided by the Invention

Employing the novel information transport component 14 interacting with remote server 22 through communications protocols 38 and 44, the invention enables the following advantageous objectives and other benefits to be achieved:

i) simple and easy execution of one or more fetch or send transactions to or from a remote server, by an ordinary, unskilled user with no human interaction at either end being necessary after initiation;

ii) automated transport of predefined information objects between client and server in a closed-ended fashion, without burdening a client-based user with complex routing logic; and

iii) creation of an economic, easy-to-use, function-specific, self-contained information transport component 14 software module suitable for mass distribution in a containing information product.

The preferred use of an object manifest in a transport control mechanism which includes transporting the object manifest between client user and server, and referencing the object manifest by user fetch-send protocol 38 and server fetch-send protocol 44 facilitates achievement of the following additional objectives:

iv) simple, tight-knit control of the communication process and of error handling; and

v) creation of a transport control mechanism, and thence of an information transport component 14, which operates smoothly and transparently to the user and independently of the information object content or of the nature of the application.

The invention thus provides an information transport software component which can be employed to transport a wide variety of data objects or applications and can be easily incorporated in many different information products to provide multiple novel containing information products 12 with built-in automated updatability or upgradability executable at an appropriate time by simple, user-menu selection or automatically.

Further Benefits

In addition to the benefits of a powerful and efficient information transport method, use of a standard, formalized transporter, its API, and client-server protocol, pursuant to the teachings of the invention disclosed herein, can provide any or all of the following significant benefits to users, information product vendors, application vendors, service providers, tool vendors or others:

vi) use of a standardized facility to perform a well-defined function in a known way (with available implementations for a varied and expanding set of hardware and software platforms);

vii) reliance on a standardized facility that can be extensively tested and proven reliable across a wide variety of equipment and conditions;

viii) reduced need for information product developers (and users, and user interface/database search software vendors) to know and understand the complexities (and rapid evolution) of data communications;

ix) ability to build a single functional interface that can smoothly employ a dynamically expanding variety of communications facilities and technologies;

x) ability to obtain operations and user support services relating to the difficult task of managing a server and its communications with large numbers of end-users;

xi) user-recognition of the novel information transport facility across a range of unrelated products, establishing a positive brand cachet benefitting users and vendors alike;

xii) ability to package the transporter facility with other tools, such as a UI(user interface) and database search capability to extend the value of those tools economically and with the ability to gain the benefits described above; and

xiii) control of communications costs and failures by elimination of human intervention, with its attendant time-consuming delays and errors, from the period during which the user's station is connected in real time communication with remote server 22.

Stated succinctly, by having the novel information transport component rely entirely on a containing information product for all user interface and information presentation functions, there need be no restrictions on the creativity of the containing product imposed by the needs of a third party communications product. Thus the containing information product can present transport functions with any desired look and feel.

Another advantage of the information transport system of the invention is the avoidance of difficult or complex navigation tasks, and the use of simple direct dial communications which are suitable for sessions that are short and infrequent. The inventive information transport products described herein are consistent with or readily adaptable to the needs of many publishers of a diversity of materials, which needs are commonly centered on discrete products and content.

A further advantage of the invention, from the point of view of publishers, is that because the call is customer initiated, the customer pays transport costs (telephone line charges), simplifying costing for the publisher who avoids having to figure shipment or other transportation costs before sale and build these costs into the price of the product or update.

The inventive approach to mass distribution of electronic information products described herein can also provide advantages in high-value environments such as those of Counterpoint Publishing's Federal Register products cited hereinabove, providing a more seamless integration of the fetching of updates received via modem (and selected and extracted by the user from the "Daily Federal Register") with the original product on CD-ROM, the "CD Federal Register". Product installation can be simplified, and a separate user invocation of, and interface to, a general-purpose communications package can be avoided. In addition, by employing the user's pre-existing modem and avoiding need for a general purpose communications product license, significant cost savings can be obtained.

The better to comprehend its possible applications and enhancements, embodiments of the invention can be grouped in four levels, as a follows.

Level Zero A novel basic transport function embeddable in any of a range of electronic information products to provide economical unattended updates.

Level One Basic transporter 14 incorporating API's 40 and 42 adds a powerful new capability to be used with an electronic information product's custom user interface, optionally enhanced with a database management facility for seamless integration of an update with an original product.

Other options can integrate with relevant third-party packages such as authoring packages.

Level One (Server enhanced) Adds server operation and user support features enabling publishers to outsource tasks which may be difficult or unfamiliar to them.

Level Two Adds optional translation or use of alternative server protocols enabling an embeddable transporter product to work with many different servers or services including, for example, standard BBS's, Internet servers, and special transport services such as those offered or proposed by communications providers such as AT&T, MCI, Compuserve, America Online and cable television systems.

Level Three Adds a full online service user interface API with correspondingly enhanced client-server protocols to provide for full-function online service sessions with user interface control, ability to work with a range of online services, providing a publisher with flexibility in their use of existing and emerging services.

These four levels of the invention are illustrated schematically in FIGS. 7-11. Referring to FIG. 7, depicting a basic Level 0 embodiment, user 100 employs generic onscreen interface 110 to initiate an update request 112 from a remote source (not shown), for an update object 46. After initiation, for example by clicking on a button in generic interface 110, communication with the remote server and retrieval of the update object 46 can proceed automatically, as described herein. Alternatively, although not shown, similar means could support submission of a send object to the remote server, both at the basic level 0 and in the cases of Levels 1-3.

In the Level 1 embodiment shown in FIG. 8, incorporation of APIs 40 and 42 in or with transporter 14 enables the containing information product 12's user interface 114 to be supplemented with object transportation functions. Also shown is a received update object 46 seamlessly integrated with information product 12 using a database management module (not shown) as described in the parent application.

When the Level 1 embodiment is enhanced with a database management module or with an authoring package a particularly valuable embodiment results, which may be described as a UI/DB-package-enhanced Level 1. In many possible applications, product 12 may not be created by original programming from scratch, but may be created by employing a standard software package which is then customized to integrate the desired publisher's information content with a standard software package or toolkit that provides the UI/DB functions. Such a UI/DB package or toolkit can use APIs 40 and 42 to provide a point of linkage to the transporter 14.

A programmer, developer or other software provider is thus by such an enhanced Level 1 embodiment to offer a software package which can easily be utilized by many different publishers to add whatever content they desire, and gain the advantages of automated, or managed information object transport, as described herein, while avoiding any need for the publisher to address the tedious and perhaps difficult mechanics of the transport operation.

The software provider can use the inventive transporter 14 as an optional element, or include it as part of his enabling product, thus offering added value to the publisher. In doing so the software provider can, if desired, set up a standard or readily customizable set of UI/DB elements to support the desired transporter functions, and provide all corresponding interfaces to APIs 40 and 42, thus relieving the publisher of the need directly to interface to the transporter via its APIs. Such an approach of integrating the inventive transporter with a more general UI/DB authoring package can also be used to include the inventive transporter component into a more broadly functional offering to publishers for the more advanced embodiments of Levels 2 and 3. It will be apparent that if a third party authoring package offers an API or system developer's interface for use with its product, the integration of the transporter with such package may be best accomplished by creating a special and novel interface module which links between that existing UI/DB package's API and the transporter APIs 40 and 42. Such an API interface module comprises an element of the invention.

The server-enhanced Level 1 embodiment depicted schematically in FIG. 9 shows how operation of a server 22 and technical support functions can be off-loaded by an electronic publisher 116 to a server operator 118. Electronic publisher 116 can distribute an information product 12, which may be complete with content, or may be merely an enabling shell, directly to users by whatever means is appropriate including distribution on physical media and electronic downloading. Updates are then furnished to server operator 118 to complete distribution of updates to appropriate users. As will be apparent, updates may embrace essentially any desired information or content, including original content intended to fill a previously distributed shell.

As shown, transporter 14 can be contained in each of a number of information products 12 distributed by one or more publishers to one or more sets of customers. Multiple information products 12 can be updated from a single server 22 or a server 22 may be dedicated to each individual product 12. The electronic publisher is thus relieved of the expense of replicating and distributing updates, or of the technical challenges of maintaining their own distribution server 22.

If desired, integration between a fetched object and original information product content can be effected by a separable content integration module for seamless viewing or processing by the user of combined local and remote content. The integration module can comprise the user interface and database integration tools, and may or may not contain the transporter 14. Such an integration module, with or without the transporter, may, subject to customization to meet the purposes of the invention, be obtainable from third parties.

The Level 2 embodiment depicted in FIG. 10 illustrates how the invention enables great communications flexibility to be easily included into their products by publishers or producers and, in turn, put in the hands of even novice users simply by equipping transporter 14 with multiple protocols enabling the user automatically to access any one of multiple servers 22 or other remote communications facilities (by including multiple protocol plug-ins, as illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 4 and described in the parent application page 78, line 12). Illustrated, by way of example, are an Internet server 22, or Internet point-of-presence, through which all or any server on the Internet may be accessed; a BBS server 22, or "bulletin board" server for access to low-cost direct-dial servers; and a third route to any other desired remote communications-equipped server, which may include commercial online services, is also shown. By channeling communications and remote data retrieval to the user via the containing information product 12, a seamless presentation through the information product 12's distinctive user interface 114 can be made. For example, a stock management product could access one remote server to update prices of the users stocks and a bulletin board to obtain current news items of the company whose stock has been updated.

In another application of this Level 2 embodiment depicted in FIG. 11, transporter 14 includes multiple client-server protocols enabling it to access any one of several online servers I, J and K. This embodiment enables a publisher to distribute product and permit the user to update or supplement it via whichever online service they happen to use, or subscribe to, thereby enabling a publisher to economize on the server function by using an established online service, yet reach the widest possible electronic consumer base by reaching users through any one of multiple services, e.g. CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy, Microsoft Network or other proprietary online service, or Internet access provider, each of which may have limited accessibility determined by market scope, geography or technology or the like.

The inventive transporter enables the publisher to accomplish this with a single, uniform interface to APIs 40 and 42, and thus without need to implement costly program interfaces specific to each online service. As described in the parent application, a preferred embodiment of the protocol plug-in maps the APIs 40 and 42 to any suitable pre-existing API available for use with a target online service, such as is offered by CompuServe for connection to its online service, or for use with an Internet server. (Alternatively, a converse translation could be effected: APIs 40 and 42 could be overlaid by a layer that simulates a pre-existing protocol used by a containing product 12 to communicate with a single online service I, thus allowing it to be retargeted to other online services J or K or other servers 22, without significant program change to the containing product.)

The Level 3 embodiment, as described in the parent application, can also be depicted using FIGS. 10 and 11, where in this case the connection protocols are enhanced to support full, continuing online session functions such as browsing, search, and chat.

Level 0 enables a user to retrieve remote information objects such as information product content or software updates, or send in information objects such as product registrations, or orders or inquiries, in an automatic, unattended manner after initiating the communications process with, for example, a single mouse click.

Level 1, by providing suitable API functionality, enables automated object retrieval (and send) functions to be integrated into the information product's own interface, a significant user and marketing advantage. Level 1,UI/DB-Package-Enhanced, integrates with authoring packages to simplify the information product producer's task even further. Level 1, Server Enhanced, by including server functionality, provides a complete service for a publisher.

Level 2 enables information objects to be fetched or retrieved, or to be furnished from pre-existing commercial services, with which the user may already have established communication channels, for example by subscription and enables a publisher to reach most or many users via a small number of pre-existing commercial online services. In addition, Level 2 enables a user to integrate local content, available from the user's local physical media, hard drive or optical disk for example, or locally created content with online content drawn from online sources or the Internet.

Level 3 enhancements of transporter 14, and especially of APIs 40 and 42 can permit tight-knit, seamless integration of appropriate content in fully online modes, giving the user an open-ended feeling of continuity between their own local resources and retrieved remote content. This facility is of particular value for sophisticated multimedia applications which may require content from multiple sources to be assembled into a coherent work such as a television commercial, a training video or "mini-movie", using moving video frames, text content, voice, photographs, special effects and so on, for highly interactive processes such as extended, free-flowing browsing and searching of relatively unbounded network content, and where dynamic contributions or interactions among multiple participants are to be accommodated, as in conferencing or real-time gaming applications involving interactions between multiple network users.

Equivalent Networks and Interface Devices

The invention described in the parent application addresses, inter alia, the problems of moving digital information objects across a telephone network between a remote source and a disparate body of users and provides a transporter which simplifies and automates transport enabling even novice users to exchange pre-specified objects with a remote source via the telephone network using modems or equivalents. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that, unlike a local area network ("LAN"), a telephone network, the phone numbers of which may be regarded as network node addresses, nevertheless lacks a distributed file management system for simple transport of files between nodes. Functions such as verification of safe receipt of information objects are readily effected on a local area network, for example by executing a directory listing of a remote node address, and much more sophisticated transport management capabilities can and are readily provided by network operating systems, network utilities, network management applications and so on.

A fully functional distributed file management service, such as is provided by a local area network (sometimes called a distributed I/O service, "I/O being an abbreviation for "input/output") permits remote files to be manipulated and accessed via the user station's operating system's normal file I/O read/write and move/copy commands, much as if the file were on a locally attached device (once appropriate access permissions have been enabled), without the complicating need for special, supplementary remote file access protocols such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP). As explained in the parent application, LANs impose burdens including significant initial costs and setup requirements, homogeneity and complexity at the nodes, login difficulties and so on, which problems are not shared by the ubiquitous telephone network to which anyone may successfully connect with a diversity of computer and modem or equivalent equipment.

It will be apparent that the benefits of the invention are obtainable when using other mass-market communications networks equivalent to a traditional telephone network which equivalent networks lack basic file management capabilities. Some such equivalent networks, which may or may not include file management capabilities, and which may be deployed over telephone network hardware, or interface therewith, include ISDN, ATM and ASDL as well as off-air services such as cellular or CPCD and as well as, cable television networks for which computer connectivity is emerging in 1996 (as foreshadowed in the parent application). Such various networks will usually require their own interface device, for example an ISDN board or a cable modem, which for the purposes of the present invention, and to the extent that they are deployed on networks with a lack of distributed file management services (or where such services cannot be relied upon to be available to any given user whenever needed), will be equivalents of ordinary telephone modems. The Internet as well as proprietary online services or other wide area data networks, especially public networks such as those using the X.25 standard (as referenced in the parent application) also generally lack distributed file management services. References herein to "direct dial-up communication" and "telephone network" are intended to include such equivalent networks lacking distributed file management services, including the Internet, and references to a "modem" include such equivalent network interface devices.

Products with Multipath Hybrid Access to a Remote Source

The invention can provide an information product with multipath hybrid access to a remote source, enabling a user of the product to receive updates from, or otherwise communicate with a remote source. Pursuant to such a preferred embodiment, an electronic publisher, or other vendor, can combine, on a consistent basis in a single product, automated online access to the Internet, (or other data network with or without file management capabilities) with dial-up access to enable a user to connect with the publisher's server via whichever online service the user already employs for Internet access or else via direct dial-up access to the publisher's server, in the event that the user is not a subscriber to one of the online services for which a protocol is provided. The access path can either be user-selected or may be automatically software-selected according to what installed modules are found on the user's computer.

This embodiment is valuable for publishers desiring to reach a mass market of computer users with a product that is readily updated in the most practical way. As at early 1996, in spite of the immense publicity received by the Internet, the majority of modem-equipped computer users do not have Internet access, nor do a large percentage use any other online service, except where the context indicates that the specific, ordinary meaning is intended. This is particularly true of home and small business computer users, who constitute a desirable market for many publishers.

Internet Applications

Internet access is relatively complex for an inexperienced computer user to set up, and usually requires commitment to a monthly subscription, yet once set up it is easy to use. The multipath hybrid access embodiment of the invention has the advantage of enabling those users who have Internet access to enjoy the functionality, speed and economy of a network path via the Internet, while other users, a vast market, can simply use dial-up access via the telephone network: they are not required to go to the trouble and expense of establishing an Internet or online service capability. Some users may employ multipath access capabilities to use different access paths according to circumstance, for example, using a network access path from the home or office and direct dial-up on the road where their proprietary online service, or other network access route may not be available.

Since the Internet is not expected to reach the majority of such other users for some years this embodiment is particularly advantageous for publishers desiring to reach a mass market. Products that automate communications via an online service yet omit dial-up capabilities will exclude a large number of prospective customers. Technically, no special effort need be made to provide Internet access to users who do not have the capability: it is simply used if present on the user's computer. However, the addition of a facility to set-up a new Internet or online service subscriptions in a further expanded embodiment of the invention will be valuable to some users. Components for such new-user set-up are commercially available for example from Internet software and service vendors, and can be combined with suitable elements of the inventive transporter component to give the user added options.

Although at the date of this application the Internet is such a dominant world-wide communications force it is hard to contemplate alternatives networks, they may arise, and indeed local organizational equivalents embodying some of the advantages of the Internet's standardization and hypertext capabilities are emerging and have been dubbed "intranets". Equally, comparable or competitive wide area networks based on substantial new or existing infrastructure may emerge. Cable television networks might provide such an infrastructure base. In most cases, relevant aspects of the invention, as described herein in connection with the Internet will also be applicable to such alternative networks and intranets, to an extent that will be apparent to those skilled in the art. As described above under the heading "Equivalent Networks", like telephone-like switched point-to-point networks, unlike local area networks supported by a homogenous network operating system maintaining a shell at every node, more heterogenous data networks such as intranets and the Internet do not generally s