Patent ID: 8024484

Claim:
A method for increasing available bandwidth in a network, the method comprising: receiving, from a first requesting system, a request for content; retrieving the content; determining a digital signature of the content; comparing the digital signature of the content to digital signatures included in an index of digital signatures; determining, based on the comparison of the digital signature of the content to the digital signatures stored in the index of digital signatures, that the digital signature of the content is not included in the index of digital signatures; based on the determination that the digital signature of the content is not stored in the index of digital signatures: compressing the content, storing the compressed content in a location of a storage device, and updating the index of digital signatures by including the digital signature of the content and an associated pointer to the location of the stored compressed content in the location of the storage device; forwarding, to the first requesting system, the stored compressed content; receiving, from a second requesting system, a request for desired content; determining a digital signature of the desired content; comparing the digital signature of the desired content to digital signatures included in the updated index of digital signatures; determining, based on the comparison of the digital signature of the desired content to the digital signatures stored in the updated index of digital signatures, that the digital signature of the desired content is included in the updated index of digital signatures; accessing a pointer associated with the digital signature of the desired content within the updated index of digital signatures; and retrieving, based on the accessed pointer, stored compressed content corresponding to the desired content from the location of the storage device corresponding to the accessed pointer; and forwarding, in response to the request for the desired content, data based on the stored compressed content retrieved from the location of the storage device.