Patent ID: 6424966
Filing Date: 2002-07-23
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
A computer-based method of retrieving and maintaining information above electronic documents stored on a computer network, each electronic document having an associated document address specification, the method comprising:(a) retrieving information about selected electronic documents, including their document address specification, from the computer network, for each selected document the retrieving including: (i) adding the associated document address specification to a transaction log; (ii) returning a copy of the electronic document and marking the document address specification in the transaction log; (iii) parsing the returned electronic copy to identify links to other electronic documents having document address specifications; (iv) adding the document address specifications of the other electronic documents to the transaction log unless previously in the transaction log; and (v) repeating (ii)-(iv) until there are no unmarked document address specifications in the transaction log; (b) storing at least some of the data associated with each returned electronic document copy in a data store, the document address specification being associated with the data for retrieval of the data from the data store; (c) providing a notification source for monitoring the document address specification corresponding to each returned electronic document copy for a change made to the electronic document associated with the document address specification; (d) sending a notification message from the notification source when the monitoring by a notification source detects a change in the electronic document data associated with the document address specification; (e) processing the notification message so as to cause an electronic document copy containing the detected changes to be returned; and (f) updating at least some of the data associated with the returned electronic copy in the data store based on the returned electronic document copy containing the detected changes.