Patent ID: 7418440

Claim:
A method for extracting data from a network by a server, comprising: a) creating a database-structured query with at least one fundamental clause including a web domain address used for locating the data, based, in part, on a user input, wherein the database-structured query includes a regular expression used to determine the data to extract, and a conditional expression describing a number where to start searching and another number where to stop searching the data at the web domain address, wherein the number where to start searching, the another number where to stop searching and an amount to increment are defined by a user; b) creating a template of the regular expression used to extract the data; c) providing authentication data to the web domain address; d) determining the web domain address on the network from which to extract the data; e) extracting the data from the web domain address directly by retrieving a non-database structured arrangement of data from the determined web domain address and performing the database-structured query upon the retrieved non-database structured arrangement of data, wherein the extracting data from the web domain further comprises matching a plurality of patterns contained within the regular expression to retrieved data to determine the data to extract, (f) repeating steps (d) and (e) in an iterative manner based on the at least one fundamental clause; (g) reshaping the extracted data to a predetermined format; and (h) providing the extracted data from the determined web domain address, wherein the extracted data is provided in a tab delimited data file, and wherein the tab delimited data file is provided directly to the user.