[IP] Patent issued for Web caching
Begin forwarded message:
From: Brett Glass <brett@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: October 20, 2006 2:55:14 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx, ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Patent issued for Web caching
Dave:
For IP, if you'd like. A patent has recently issued which appears to
cover any and all forms of caching in a client/server system --
including the World Wide Web.The principal claim is for
"1. A method, including steps of: receiving a set of network objects
in response to a first request to a server from a client; and
maintaining said network objects in a cache memory in a cache engine,
said cache engine connected via a network to the server and the
client, said cache memory including mass storage; wherein said step
of maintaining includes steps of recording said network objects in
said cache memory and retrieving said network objects from said cache
memory, so as to substantially minimizes a time required for
retrieving said network objects from said mass storage".
In short, the patent is broad enough to cover virtually any form of
caching in a client/server situation. The link to the patent at the
USPTO is quite long, so I've run it through TinyURL.com for the
convenience of IP readers. The patent is at
http://tinyurl.com/ym7xq8
Note that the patent issued in September of this year, but was
applied for in 1998. This was long after the CERN HTTP cache, the
DARPA-funded "Harvest project," the NLANR Information Resource
Caching project (IRCache), the release of the first version of Squid,
and the release of the Cisco Cache Engine, so there appears to be
ample prior art. One can only wonder how this patent possibly could
have issued.
--Brett Glass, LARIAT.NET
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