Patent ID: 7219106

Claim:
A system for distributing files and transmitting/receiving the distributed files, comprising: a file distribution/transmission/reception module depending upon an application program executable in a client computer and performed in a background process of a corresponding application program execution module, the file distribution/transmission/reception module receiving the files designated by a host computer from a network and storing the received files while an application program is executed, or transmitting corresponding files to another client computer if the corresponding files exist, in response to another client computer's request for transmission of the files designated by the host computer; the file distribution/transmission/reception module sending a request for the transmission of the files designated by the host computer to at least one client computer connected to a sub-network, and receiving corresponding files from a client computer selected from among client computers, connected to the sub-network, responsive to the file transmission request; the file transmission request is sent to other client computers connected to the host computer, if no client computer connected to the sub-network is responsive to the file transmission request, then corresponding files are received from a client computer selected from among the other client computers, connected to the host computer, responsive to the file transmission request; wherein a CPU occupancy ratio of the file distribution/transmission/reception module is relatively smaller than that of the application program execution module such that influence of the file distribution/transmission/reception module executed in the background process with respect to the application program execution module executed in the foreground process can be minimized.