Patent ID: 7330898
Filing Date: 2008-02-12
Classification: G06F,H04L,Y10S

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for facilitating Internet-based content distribution in which events are transmitted among clients including sending clients and receiving clients, the apparatus comprising: a computer processing unit that facilitates retrieval of an event summary for a client, the event summary identifying a set of events for which said client is eligible, the computer processing unit being operable to receive a request for the event summary and, responsive to receiving said event summary request, derive the event summary from a hierarchical database comprising groups, wherein each group can be assigned one or more clients and one or more events, and wherein the hierarchical database comprises a directed acyclic group structure in which clients assigned to a particular group are eligible for events assigned to that particular group as well as for events assigned to all ancestor groups thereof, the computer processing unit sending the derived event summary to said client.