Patent ID: 6985912

Claim:
A computer system or network comprising a local or distributed data or object caching system wherein: (a) data or objects are (i) placed in a user cache in the caching system when the data or object is first read from a data source by a user as a lazy cache, or (ii) preloaded as directed by a user, (b) each unit of data or object that is placed in a user cache is registered with a unit notification system (UNS) as being present in the cache and the UNS is connected to a Java Messaging Service (JMS) or to any other reliable messaging service available in the object programming language system environment, (c) when any unit of data or object is updated in a user caches and persisted (saved) to a primary data source the UNS sends a message to all other user caches that may exist and contain the updated unit of data or object to register in the user cache a message that the unit was updated by another user and is noted as being invalid in the cache, and (d) other user caches that have been notified as described in (c) will read from the data source the updated unit of data or object and update the cache only when a user attempts to access the invalidated unit or data or object in a user cache, may automatically update the user cache as soon as notified as has been pre-set in the caching system by the user of the user cache.