Patent ID: 7216173

Claim:
A computer network communication system comprising: a client computer system; a first computer network; and a server computer system comprising: a storage device, VPN software stored on the storage device, wherein the VPN software is an applet, and VPN server software for downloading the VPN software to a client computer system over the first network, with the VPN software being executable by the client computer system; wherein the VPN software comprises machine readable instructions and data for causing the client computer system to set up bi-directional communications, where such bi-directional communications are established by requests initiated by the client computer system, wherein the bi-directional communications include an unsolicited-input connection with the first network such that the client computer system will receive first-network-ready machine readable data from the first network over the unsolicited-input connection, regardless of whether the first-network ready data has been requested by the client computer system wherein the VPN software instructs the client computer system to set up the unsolicited-input connection of the bi-directional communications, by issuing a HTTP GET request, and if no response is provided in response to the HTTP GET request, the client computer system will issue subsequent HTTP GET requests, whereby the issuing of the HTTP GET requests, followed by the issuance of subsequent HTTP GET requests operates to create an idle state which provides for the unsolicited-input connection.