Patent ID: 8266310

Claim:
A computer implemented method of retrieving information from a server computer connected to a network, the method comprising: generating by a client computer a first request for content stored on the server computer, wherein the request is formatted according to a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), wherein the HTTP is HTTP/1.1; including in the first request an indication that the client computer is capable of retrieving the content from a peer computer in a peer-to-peer network, the indication being included in an Accept-Encoding field of an HTTP/1.1 header, wherein the Accept-Encoding field is used to indicate compression formats that are acceptable to the client computer; sending the first request to the server; and receiving, from the server, a response that does not include the content, the response being formatted according to the HTTP/1.1 and including an HTTP/1.1 header, wherein the response includes content information about the content, wherein the content information allows a client to retrieve the content from the peer computer; generating a second request with information derived from the content information; sending the second request to the peer computer in the peer-to-peer network; in response to the second request, receiving a response from the peer computer indicating that the peer computer does not have the content; in response to receiving the response from the peer computer, generating a third request for the content, wherein the third request is formatted according to the HTTP; sending the third request to the server, wherein the third request does not include the indication that the client computer is capable of retrieving the content from a peer computer in the peer-to-peer network; and in response to the third request, receiving a second response from the server with the content.