Abstract:
A secure manipulation archiving retrieval and transmission system for electronic multi media commerce, includes: a plurality of client devices having image communication capability; an image processing center, including an application server(s), and an image archiving and storage database containing multimedia files and associated meta data; a host server connected to client devices by a communication network, and to the image processing center through an electronic security mechanism, the host server providing the client devices indirect access to the image processing center through the electronic security mechanism, whereby the client devices are prevented from interacting directly with the image processing center to provide multiple levels of security to the image processing center; a commercial photo network including a plurality of image capture devices and image output devices connected by a communication network; an image clearinghouse connected to the commercial photo network for temporarily receiving, storing and distributing images based on a set of rules for storage and distribution of the images, and connected to the image processing center through an electronic security mechanism, whereby the commercial photo network is prevented from interacting directly with the image processing center to provide multiple levels of security to the image processing center; and a plurality of third party on-line image storage and retrieval sites connected to the image clearinghouse by a communication network.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
   The present invention relates to commercial photography, and more particularly to systems for providing on-line multimedia services employing a method of secure transmission, storage, retrieval, distribution and printing of digital images over a networked communication system. 
   BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
   U.S. Pat. No. 6,071,157, issued Jan. 25, 2000 to Garfinkle et al., entitled Method of Processing Digital Images and Distributing Visual Prints Produced from the Digital Images, describes a method of processing digital images and distributing visual prints from the digital images. Such a system will be referred to herein as a photo-commerce system. The system described by Garfinkle et al. includes a roll based account structure and direct database (image server) access via a WWW (World Wide Web) and HTML (hypertext markup language) interface, and direct database access by scanning centers or photographers. Additionally, a highly distributed mesh of image servers which is based upon a policy of physically deploying image servers based upon individual scanning center needs. These features generate complex systems management issues which primarily occur in the areas of configuration management, performance management and security management. The highly distributed nature of this system creates an environment in which maintaining consistency among image servers regarding software updates, version control and general administration becomes inefficient. Individual image servers comprise the overall photo commerce system and must act in a consistent and uniform manner, but are continually hampered by their nearly random physical distribution. This physical distribution and fragmentation of the system yields performance issues which are ultimately experienced by clients attempting to access image servers in the form of time to access and response time. Security management of this photo commerce system is also a critical issue. Database integrity is continually at risk because scanning centers and other client devices directly make updates, which alter account information. Security consists of account authentication and HTTPS (Secure Hypertext Transport Protocol) which is inadequate in a system of this commercial nature and size. Finally the photo commerce system is designed to maintain accounts which compile numerous JPEG images into groups identified as rolls. This presents a fundamental limitation of the photo commerce system to support and identify account ownership of individual file types, which may be JPEG, or other electronic multimedia formats. 
   Hence, there is a need for an improved photo commerce system that avoids or addresses more directly the security, performance and configuration issues noted above, while supporting a greater range of file management options. It is an object of the present invention to increase security and integrity of databases, reduce configuration and performance management complexity and yield a more versatile and flexible account structure. 
   SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
   The need is met according to the present invention by providing a secure manipulation archiving retrieval and transmission system for electronic multimedia commerce. This includes: a plurality of client devices having image communication capability; an image processing center, including an application server(s), and an image archiving and storage database containing multimedia files and associated meta data; a host server connected to client devices by a communication network, and to the image processing center through an electronic security mechanism, the host server providing the client devices indirect access to the image processing center through the electronic security mechanism, whereby the client devices are prevented from interacting directly with the image processing center to provide multiple levels of security to the image processing center. Also included is: a commercial photo network including a plurality of image capture devices and image output devices connected by a communication network; an image clearinghouse connected to the commercial photo network for temporarily receiving, storing and distributing images based on a set of rules for storage, and distribution of the images, and connected to the image processing center through an electronic security mechanism, whereby the commercial photo network is prevented from interacting directly with the image processing center to provide multiple levels of security to the image processing center; and a plurality of third party on-line image storage and retrieval sites connected to the image clearinghouse by a communication network. 
   ADVANTAGES 
   The advantage of the present invention is that efficiency in configuration, performance and security management of a distributed service available via the WWW is addressed directly via technical design. This invention addresses areas which yield greater uniformity, scalability, robustness and reliability to a system which can be accessed by ten of thousands of client devices at any given time. It enhances the experience of those operating client devices by delivering faster data access times, greater confidence in long-term data integrity and uniformity of the experience. 
   In a preferred embodiment of the system, the communication network is the WWW and the host server is located at an internet gateway or co-location site on a private communication network, which allows the system to scale robustly and reliably. The use of internet gateways or co-location sites results in geographic distribution of the system that is based on the client device population. Additionally, this reduces operational management complexity by reducing distribution of equipment, deployment of multiple levels of security and aggregation of bandwidth, and use of hardened data centers which are located as virtually close to client devices as possible by utilizing internet gateway locations. Security mechanisms provide multiple gateways of authentication between databases and any party requesting an update to those databases. The distribution of databases are placed as virtually and physically close to client devices as possible while reducing the large number of image servers currently required. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       FIG. 1  is a high level schematic diagram of a secure manipulation archiving retrieval and transmission system for electronic multimedia commerce according to the present invention; 
       FIG. 2  is a flowchart of the secure process for a client device to retrieve or update data, which is archived by the current invention; 
       FIG. 3  is a flowchart of the secure process in which data is received by the image processing center from the commercial photo network and distributed to third party on-line storage and retrieval sites; and 
       FIG. 4  is a high level flowchart of the path followed by an output request generated by a client device. 
   

   DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
   Beginning with  FIG. 1 , a system for performing the method of the present invention is shown. The system includes a plurality of client devices  10  (only one is shown for simplicity), which may access this system using commercially available user interfaces designed with WWW browsing capabilities such as Internet Explorer™ from the Microsoft Corporation. A plurality of host servers  12  (only one of which is shown for simplicity) create a secure connection to the client devices  10  over a communication network  16  such as the Internet. An image processing center  14  includes a plurality of application servers  20  and storage databases  22 . Although the storage databases  22  shown as a single entity in  FIG. 1 , it is to be understood that the databases  22  represent a logical entity and may be embodied by multiple digital data storage devices located at geographically dispersed locations as is well known in the art of distributed database design. The host server  12  and image processing center  14  are connected with each other by a communication network  16 , which can be a local area network LAN. The host server is located at an Internet gateway or co-location site on a private communication network thereby allowing the system to scale robustly and reliably, and deriving the benefits of aggregated bandwidth and hardened data centers. 
   The application server  20  performs image rendering and other related processing requests made by the host server  12 , in response to requests from client devices  10 . The storage databases  22  may be comprised of multiple database instances which are responsible for the management and categorization of multimedia files, metadata and image rendering scripts. Metadata is data that is stored along with the multimedia data that relates to some aspect or property of the multimedia data and can include, for example, the location of an image, image capture conditions, audio or captions related to an image, and instructions for rendering an image. The storage databases may also contain image-rendering scripts for processing images to create variations of high resolution images. When a high resolution image is modified, the image rendering scripts for modifying the high resolution image may be stored along with the unmodified high resolution image in lieu of storing a high resolution version of the modified image. Scripts for creating low, medium or thumbnail images from high resolution images may be stored along with the high resolution images in lieu of storing the low, medium or thumbnail images themselves. A low-resolution image for example would contain a 384×256 pixel image, which is suitable for viewing on a color monitor. Whereas a high resolution image may be 3072×2048 pixel image which is suitable for producing a high quality photographic print. The stored image rendering scripts may represent manipulations that were made to high resolution original images by a user with an application interface such as Adobe Photoshop™. 
   The communication network  16  may include the deployment and integration of wide area networks (WAN) such as the Internet, virtual private networks (VPN), or private networks and local area networks (LAN). An example of a LAN would be a switched gigabit Ethernet and cabling installed to EIA/TIA  356   a  and  356   b  specifications as appropriate, which can be implemented to provide communications between the application server  20  and storage database  22 . An example of a WAN is the use of a common Internet connection by a client device  10  to access in some manner a host server  12  and ultimately the data or services offered by the image-processing center  14 . The communication network  16  provides an electronic or data link and physical path for communication to occur between all components in the system. 
   The communication network  16  utilizes known protocols such as TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/Internet protocol), UDP (user datagram protocol), SSL (secure sockets layer), RPC (remote procedure call) and other variations of these protocols, such as FEC (forward error correction). Also included in the system is a plurality of electronic security mechanisms  18  (only one shown for simplicity) around each image processing center  14 . The electronic security mechanisms  18  include firewall technology, access control lists which provide communications network  16  access to trusted network devices only, data encryption, device and user authentication policies which are electronically monitored, and protocol filtering. The electronic security mechanisms  18  may include programs for inspecting and identifying images or data that do not comprise a standard file format or that contain evidence of the presence of an electronic virus and discarding such images or data. Although the host server  12  is shown and described above as a separate entity from the application server  20 , it will be understood that they could both reside as logical entities on a single computer, along with the electronic security mechanisms  18 . 
   The system also includes a plurality of commercial photo networks  28  (only one being shown for simplicity) each including a plurality of image capture devices and image output devices connected by a communication network  16  to one or more image clearinghouses  24  (only one being shown for simplicity). The image clearinghouses  24  provide, to varying degrees, the functions of security, transaction accounting and image or file distribution based upon predetermined policies. The policies by which images or files are distributed by the image clearinghouses  24  are determined by the business relationships between the owners of the commercial photo networks  28 , third party on-line storage and retrieval sites  26 , and the image processing centers  14 . The image clearinghouses  24  make use of metadata and XML information, in combination with security policies, to identify images and files for distribution. XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a program language used to create tags to indicate the meaning of data and routing information for rendering displays. 
   The third party on-line image storage and retrieval sites  26  (only one being shown for simplicity) include retail photofinishers, photo specialty retailers, food and drug retailers, mass merchandisers, on-line portal companies, internet service providers and providers of on-line services. The interaction between the third party on-line image storage and retrieval sites  26  and the image clearinghouses  24  is similar to that of the commercial photo networks  28  in that the third party on-line image storage and retrieval sites  26  receive images distributed by the image clearinghouses  24  and also send images, files, metadata and XML instructions to the image clearinghouses  24 . The image clearinghouses  24  then distribute that input from the third party on-line image storage and retrieval sites  26  based upon predetermined and electronically implemented policies. 
   Referring to  FIG. 2 , the secure interaction between a client device  10 , a communication network  16 , a host server  12 , and an image processing center  14  is described in greater detail. The client device  10  uses a commercially available WWW browser interface to traverse the communication network  16  and interact with the host server  12 . Once the client device  10  has electronically opened communication  30  with the host server  12 , authentication of a user id and password  30   a  can occur which will result in either a denial of authentication and connection termination  30   b  based upon incorrect input by the client device  10  and a response to the client device  10  reflecting this, or acceptance of the user id and password  30   a  which creates a transaction session  30  with the client device via an SSL (secure socket layer) or similarly secure connection. 
   The client device  10 , when authenticated, can then process instructions on the application server  20  which will in turn perform requested processes  34  with respect to the storage database  22  or issue instructions for output fulfillment  42 . When instructions initiated by the client device  10  are received by the application server  20  from the host server  12 , they will be verified as having been transmitted by a trusted source as a measure of security and insurance of data integrity  32 . These instructions will also traverse an electronic security mechanism  18  which is within the communication network  16  of this transaction. This electronic security mechanism  18  will insure that only trusted host and specific types of communications are occurring between the host server  12  and the image-processing center  14 . If the source of the request is deemed  32  to be originating from a non-trusted host, then the connection and communication will terminate  32   a  ending the session. If the source of the request is deemed to be authentic  32  then the requested processes will continue. An image archiving and storage database  22  can be addressed to retrieve a single digital image, a single motion image, or a single audio file input by a client device  10  via the electronic security mechanism. 
   Essentially, in the most basic forms there are only three types of processes that will occur. The first is a request for output fulfillment  42 ; the second is a request  38   b  to update or deliver input to an account on the storage database  22   a , which includes the manipulation or alteration of original data from the storage database  22  and the uploading of original data from another source such as a client device  10 ; the third is to retrieve data  38   a  from the storage database  22  for the purposes of alteration, download or sharing either on-line in real time or via a delayed mechanism such as email. Once the request  38  is made to the storage database  22  it will be processed accordingly and either update the database  38   b , retrieve data  38   a , or both, from the database  22   a . The database management program will then verify if the requested data retrieval or function is available  36   a . If the database management program is unable to process the request then it will return a rejection  36   b  to the application server  20 , which ultimately notifies the client device  10 . If the database is able to process the request then the appropriate response in the form of retrieved data or verification  36   c  is returned to the application server  20 , which again ultimately notifies the client device  10 . Alternatively, separate trusted application servers (not shown) that are not maintained as part of the image-processing center  14  may be employed to access the data stored on the storage data bases  22 . For example an application server maintained by an internet portal may be given access to the storage data bases  22 . 
   Referring to  FIG. 3 , the process of transferring professionally scanned or captured images from the commercial photo network  28  to the image clearinghouse  24  for distribution to the storage database  22  and third party on-line image storage and retrieval sites  26  is described. First within the commercial photo network  28 , digitized images are collected for transmission to a storage database  50  located in the commercial photo network  28 . Once this process has met predetermined limits, the digitized images and associated data such as metadata and XML information, is transmitted via communications network  16 , utilizing known protocols such as TCP/IP, UDP with FEC or FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to the image clearinghouse  24 . Once the images are received  52  at the image clearinghouse  24  they must be verified  52   a  to have originated from a trusted source and to have retained integrity. If the data is deemed to be in violation of security or data integrity policies, then the connection processes will terminate, and a system administrator will be notified  52   b . Action will then be taken to resolve the discrepancy. If the data is deemed to have met all stated policies for security and data integrity, then data can be distributed according to instructions  52   c . Those distribution instructions can include transmitting any variation of the data to third party on-line storage and retrieval sites  26  via a communications network  16  or through the electronic security mechanisms  18  to the storage database  22 . At the storage database  22  the request to update will be received and verified to have arrived from a trusted source  54  before completing the process. A digital image can be distributed electronically to other servers that are not a part of the system by the image clearinghouse  24 . The image clearing house  24  may include means for distributing digital images according to a distribution policy based upon image resolution. For example, all low resolution images may be directed to the third party on-line image storage and retrieval sights  26 , and all high resolution image forwarded to the storage database  22 . 
   Referring to  FIG. 4 , the output fulfillment request process is described, which is a continuation of FIG.  2 . This process assumes that a client device  10  has originated a request of the application server  20  to issue a fulfillment request to the commercial photo network  28 . A fulfillment request includes final deliverables from the commercial photo network  28  such as commercial photo prints, hard goods such as coffee mugs with prints or T-shirts, or electronic media containing data from the image processing center  14 . 
   Continuing from  FIG. 2 , the data has been acquired  60  by the application server  20  from the storage database  22  and options for the output order have been chosen  60   a  through interaction between the client device  10  and the host server  12 . The host server  12  has communicated these instructions, through electronic security mechanism  18 , to the application server  20 . This data is then encapsulated  64   a  with the appropriate routing data and sent to the image clearinghouse  24  using electronic security mechanisms  18  for distribution. The commercial photo network host is contacted  64   b  by the image clearinghouse  24 , which then authenticates  64   c  with the commercial photo network host. If the commercial photo network host is unable to authenticate and is deemed to be not trusted by the image clearinghouse  24 , then the process is terminated  64   d , the event will be logged, and a system administrator will be notified. If the commercial photo network host is authenticated and deemed to be trusted then the order will by transmitted  64   e  via a communications network  16 . The commercial photo network  28  will receive the order  66  and then process the order. Alternatively, a stored image in the storage database  22  can be retrieved in response to a secure client request for output fulfillment by the commercial photo network  28 . This action may be taken, for example, when the first copy of a high resolution image is corrupted on transmission from the image processing center  14  and a second copy of the high resolution image must be retrieved. 
   Thus the entire process and operation from the client device  10  through the image processing center  14  to the commercial photo network  28  or third party on-line image storage and retrieval sites  26  has occurred with the deployment of multiple levels of security and opportunities for configuration control. Additionally, performance management of this environment is made substantially easier by compartmentalizing various components of the process. This will allow each component to enjoy specific treatment of performance issues based upon the processes that only occur there. The opposite would be an attempt to maximize performance of the entire system based upon a performance issue which occurs only in an isolated area of the environment. 
   The invention has been described in detail with particular reference to certain preferred embodiments thereof, but it will be understood that variations and modifications can be effected within the spirit and scope of the invention. 
   Parts List 
   
       
         10  client device 
         12  host server 
         14  image processing center 
         16  communication network 
         18  electronic security mechanisms 
         20  application server 
         22  storage database 
         22   a  storage database 
         24  image clearinghouse 
         26  third party on-line storage and retrieval sites 
         28  commercial photo network 
         30  begin transaction step 
         30   a  authentication step 
         30   b  connection termination step 
         32  insure integrity step 
         32   a  terminate communication step 
         34  perform processes step 
         36   a  verify availability of request step 
         36   b  verify function availability step 
         36   c  verify data retrieved step 
         38  request step 
         38   a  retrieve data step 
         38   b  request to update or deliver input step 
         42  requests fulfillment step 
         50  storage database 
         52  images received step 
         52   a  verify images received step 
         52   b  notify administrator step 
         52   c  instructions 
         54  verify step 
         60  data acquired step 
         60   a  output order chosen step 
         64   a  encapsulate data step 
         64   b  contact host step 
         64   c  authentication step 
         64   d  terminate process and notify administrator step 
         64   e  transmit order step 
         66  receive order step