United States Patent (10) Patent N0.: US 6,173,311 B1 Hassett Et Al
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US006173311B1 (12) United States Patent (10) Patent N0.: US 6,173,311 B1 Hassett et al. (45) Date of Patent: *Jan. 9, 2001 (54) APPARATUS, METHOD AND ARTICLE OF FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS MANUFACTURE FOR SERVICING CLIENT 0113022 11/1984 (EP) REQUESTS ON A NETWORK 0206565 12/1986 (EP) 2034995 6/1980 (GB) (75) Inventors: Gregory P. Hassett, Cupertino, CA 2141907 1/1985 (GB) (US); Harry Collins, South Orange, NJ 2185670 7/1987 (GB) (US); Vibha Dayal, Saratoga, CA (US) 2207314 1/1989 (GB) 2256549 12/1992 (GB) (73) Assignee: PointCast, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US) 2281434 3/1995 (GB) 88/04507 6/1988 (WO) ( * ) Notice: This patent issued on a continued pros 90/07844 7/1990 (WO) ecution application ?led under 37 CFR 92/12488 7/1992 (WO) 93/09631 5/1993 (WO) 1.53(d), and is subject to the tWenty year 93/19427 9/1993 (WO) patent term provisions of 35 U.S.C. 95/31069 11/1995 (WO) 154(a)(2). 96/30864 10/1996 (WO) 96/34466 10/1996 (WO) Under 35 U.S.C. 154(b), the term of this patent shall be extended for 0 days. OTHER PUBLICATIONS Appl. No.: 08/800,153 Article, “There’s more to one—Way addressability than meets (21) the eye”. (22) Filed: Feb. 13, 1997 Article, “VCR Technology”, No. 4 in a series of reports from Mitsubishi R&D, Video RevieW, Jan. 1989. (51) Int. Cl.7 .................................................... .. G06F 15/16 Article, “DIP II”, The Ultimate Program Guide Unit from the ultimate listings company. (52) US. Cl. ......................... .. 709/202; 709/217; 709/105 K. Birman, et al., “The ISIS System Manual”, By the ISIS Project, Mar. 15, 1988, pp 1—15. (58) Field of Search ....................... .. 395/200.47, 200.48, K. Birman, et al., Programming Your Way Out Of The Past 395/200.49; 707/201, 202, 203; 709/217, ISIS and The Meta Project, Sun Technology, Summer 1989, 218, 219, 202, 105 pp 90—104. (56) References Cited (List continued on neXt page.) U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS Primary Examiner—Dung C. Dinh 3,848,193 11/1974 Martin et al. ........................ .. 325/53 (74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Blakely, Sokoloff, Taylor & 3,987,398 10/1976 Fung ........ .. 325/309 Zafman 4,170,782 10/1979 Miller . .. 358/84 4,186,413 1/1980 Mortimer ........................... .. 358/146 (57) ABSTRACT 4,224,644 9/1980 Lewis et al. ...................... .. 360/722 4,287,592 9/1981 Paulish et al. 370/88 A server services client requests in an improved manner by a utilizing a combination of sending an id of the last article 4,288,809 9/1981 Yabe . .. 358/12 4,305,101 12/1981 Yarbrough et al. 360/69 that has been previously sent to the client, load balancing 4,307,446 12/1981 Barton et al. ...................... .. 364/200 servers to provide ef?cient servicing of clients and providing 4,338,644 7/1982 Staar .................................. .. 360/132 redundant servers so that a failure of any one server does not result in the termination of server services to clients. 4,347,4984,381,522 8/19824/1983 LeeLambert et al. ............................... .. 358/86 (List continued on neXt page.) 21 Claims, 26 Drawing Sheets Passthrough agent the IP addressh this N04.? tmnsmils rcquest to machine? llcalln?ll?n computer. Yes Retrieve data Yes-—> from wish; and transmit data to client. Does Mall’ fCqUCSlUI the Category acc ancewith ID of the request indicate HOW-0116011110] iii AdS Flgul'cll Age . Does the Categor Manage request in [D ofthc request indicate "OTLlBHLIC Wlill wrofrmntml m Figure 10v No US 6,173,311 B1 Page 2 U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS 5,283,731 2/1994 Lalonde et al. .................... .. 364/401 4 405 946 9/1983 Kn_ ht 358/192 1 5,285,272 2/1994 Bradley et al. 348/6 , , 1g ............................ .. 474297385 14984 Cichelli 9 a1~ 37992 2138225? 111332‘ lBfunl-iiryeiilj ....................... 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