Patent ID: 8799467

Claim:
A method implemented by a sending device, the method comprising: prior to receiving a request to communicate a content item via a network, identifying one or more duplicate chunks of data from the content item by comparing data in the content item to previously stored data, wherein the one or more duplicate chunks of data from the content item are one or more chunks of data from the content item that match data that has been previously stored; generating one or more identifiers for the one or more duplicate chunks of data, wherein each of the one or more identifiers are associated with respective ones of the one or more duplicate chunks of data; storing the one or more identifiers; storing the content item such that each of the stored one or more identifiers replace the respective identified ones of the one or more duplicate chunks of data, whereby each duplicate chunk of data is stored only once at the sending device; and responsive to the request to communicate the data via a network, forming a communication to communicate via the network, the communication having the stored content item with the one or more identifiers associated with the one or more duplicate chunks of data, the one or more identifiers configured to be usable to identify whether the one or more duplicate chunks are available to a receiving device at least one of the group consisting of: a local cache and a peer-to-peer network.