Patent Document

BACKGROUND OF INVENTION  
       [0001]     The field of this invention is hyperlink park and search (HPS). More specifically, when the cursor parks on a hyperlink, behind the scene the computer automatically visits the link and performs a range of desired operations, such as:  
         [0002]     Searches for a set of strings that the user has inputted and displays on the current viewing screen whether or not there are matches. Stores all displayed data in the computer. Edits and displays stored data in between parks. Searches for pre-defined song information that the user has inputted and when it identifies a match, downloads and plays a media data file using a media player on the current viewing computer.  
         [0003]     Indicates on the current viewing screen if any of the parked-on hyperlinks cannot be linked to and/or displayed.  
         [0004]     Rates the hyperlinked page that the cursor is parked on without leaving the current viewing page.  
         [0005]     Every web site usually has a main web page that has at least one hyperlink to its inner page or other Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). Email texts often also contain hyperlinks. When one uses the Yahoo! search engine, for example, a number of URLs show up on the results page. When one reads a description of a URL and clicks on it, sometimes one finds that the page cannot be displayed, or the link is to a page one has already visited. Currently, when one clicks on a hyperlink and a new web page is displayed, from the Edit menu one can select Find (on This Page). When the Find dialog is displayed, one can input search string (s) into the textbox with the label Find What. One can click Find Next in the Find dialog to conduct a search on the newly displayed page. Then one clicks back to the previous web page to view other hyperlinks, clicks on those hyperlinks to display the web pages linked to by them, and then repeats the process of using Edit on the browser&#39;s menu bar. This process is tedious and error prone at best. This invention removes the forward and backward web page navigation from the user browsing experience and allows the user to devote more time and attention to searching for the information he/she really needs.  
         [0006]     Currently, unlike this invention, none of the existing browser technologies, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape, has the function of parking on the hyperlink, searching in the background, displaying the searched results, and storing the searched results without leaving the current viewing computer screen. This invention therefore can help cut down unwanted browsing time by showing the results of multiple-string searches on parked-on hyperlinks on the current viewing computer screen. The user can select and store a portion of each searched result. This invention provides a method of showing the strings matching percentage of the web page—it is named Web Page Text Rating Index (WPTRI). This index gives an objective rating of a specific web page based on predefined criteria provided by the user.  
         [0007]     For example, when one parks the cursor on a particular text hyperlink or a picture hyperlink, the browser status bar, title bar, or tool-tip-text will display: “This page cannot be displayed --&gt;http://www.cannotdisplay.com” if the page cannot be displayed. If the search strings were “dog” and “cat,” the display may read: “{dog} has --&gt;3, {cat} has --&gt;0, --&gt;http://www.pethouse.com.” Or the display may read: “Free dog examination, How to give your dog a bath, $50 for a mixed-breed dog --&gt;http://www.pethouse.com.” In the case of WPTRI, when browsing a web page, the status bar, title bar, or tool-tip-text will display a rating result such as: “This page is travel-related; its rating index is 35%.” Thirty-five percent is the strings matching percentage. “Travel-related” is determined by matching the strings from different subject areas such as travel, law, medicine, etc. In this case, the most strings matched were travel-related. When the subject of travel is detected, it uses its sub-subjects to calculate the strings matching percentage. The higher the percentage, the better the travel content. The strings contained in the sub-subjects of “travel” for instance, can be requested from travel associations. The user may add to or modify the sub-subjects if he or she chooses to do so.  
         [0008]     For example, in the Microsoft Explorer status bar, it will display: “This page is travel-related, its rating index is 35%,” “Thailand has 5 out of 10 matches, Europe has 12 out of 20 matches, Japan has 6 out of 7 matches,” etc. “Thailand has 5 out of matches” means that this web page contains five of the ten points of interest agreed on by the local travel association that provides the sub-subjects. This reduces the possibility of visiting web pages with exaggerated advertising or pages with much form but little substance. WPTRI is indifferent to web page layout, the color scheme of the web page, grammar, and other stylistic aspects of the web pages. It provides neutrality to the commercially-tilted search results (so-called “sponsored matches”) seen on most search engines today.  
         [0009]     The rating of a page can be achieved visually or for instance by U.S. Pat. No. 5,996,011, entitled “System and method for filtering data received by a computer system,” issued on Nov. 30, 1999 to Donald Creig Humes, which filters objectionable words at the moment the computer receives the data. Another example is Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS). The way PICS works is when the user requests to browse a URL, the filter software sends that URL to a label bureau requesting a description label of that URL, and that software will then decide based on the label received whether or not to reject connection to the URL. U.S. Pat. No. 6,266,664, entitled “Method for scanning, analyzing and rating digital information content,” issued on Jul. 24, 2001 to Adrian Peter Russell-Falla and Andrew Bard Hanson weighs each filtered word on a web page and disallows connection to the URL if the words exceed a total threshold rating. U.S. Pat. No. 6,389,472, entitled “Method and system for identifying and locating inappropriate content” issued on May 14, 2002 to Patrick Alan Hughes and Paul Blair Elswick uses the strings in the proxy server to search the received data and disallows connection to the URL when the data is unwanted.  
         [0010]     Chen&#39;s invention uses a Web Page Text Rating Index (WPTRI). The WPTRI is calculated by using rating subjects and sub-subjects from a predefined list to search web pages and then dividing the number of matches by the total number of strings in the sub-subjects and multiplying that number by 100. Rating methods vary.  
         [0011]     The embodiment of Chen&#39;s invention uses, for example, the following Microsoft web products and technologies: Microsoft Office XP software including Excel VBA, Access VBA, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Access database, and Excel database; Microsoft SQL database software; Visual Basic 6.0; Visual Basic.Net; Microsoft Visual C++; C# programming language; Microsoft Windows Application Programming Interface; Microsoft Advance Server 2000; Windows CE; and Microsoft Visual Studio.Net. Other examples include Linux operation software, UNIX and PHP programming language, MySQL database, and Oracle database software. In Chen&#39;s invention, the client-side user computer can be a personal computer, a web pad, a tablet PC, a mobile PC, a PDA, a mobile phone with PDA, a Microsoft Smart Display, or an interactive digital TV. The computer link to the Internet can be wired or wireless. The input device used to input search strings in this invention can be a keyboard, a handwriting input device or a voice recognition device.  
       SUMMARY OF INVENTION  
       [0012]     (A) When the cursor parks on a hyperlink, the computer tries to access the link and decides whether the link is accessible.  
         [0013]     (B) When the cursor parks on a hyperlink, the computer automatically searches the link for matches with strings or other criteria the user has inputted and displays the results on the current viewing computer web page, whether or not there are matches. The search criteria can be added/deleted/modified in between parks. In between parks are for example when the browser navigating URL is changed, interrupted by at least one keyboard input or at least one mouse button click. Download a media data file to play a song on the current viewing computer using a media player (for example a Windows media player) when a search on the imported web page with the user&#39;s pre-defined search criteria has identified a match of the song&#39;s information. In a web page containing radio station hyperlinks, sequentially and automatically park the cursor on every hyperlink to search according to the user&#39;s pre-inputted priority song list and play the song on the media player when a match is found.  
         [0014]     (C) Cut down unwanted browsing time by eliminating the need to search back-and-forth between hyperlinks by displaying the contexts that contain the searched strings on the current viewing computer screen. This assists the viewer in deciding whether or not to click on the hyperlink.  
         [0015]     (D) All displayed data is stored in the computer. HPS can edit and display the stored data in between parks. HPS prints a summary of the search results from all parked-on hyperlinks. This allows the contents searcher in editing the searched context for example using Microsoft Word without leaving the current viewing computer page.  
         [0016]     (E) Rates the page that the cursor is parked on without leaving the current viewing page. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS  
       [0017]      FIGS. 1 through 17  comprise the flowchart for a preferred embodiment of Hyperlink Park and Search. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0018]     The preferred embodiment of the invention uses an open network, such as the Internet. A computer program by the name Hyperlink Park and Search for executing the preferred embodiment of this invention is already installed in the Windows XP program of a computer. Initiate the Windows XP program and click Start. Point to Programs, and a list of programs is displayed. Click on Hyperlink Park and Search, and a form  100  with the caption “Hyperlink Park and Search” is then opened as shown in  FIG. 1 . In the form  100 , click the “Detect the parked-on hyperlink connection” button  110  and the browser is then opened with its default URL http://www.yahoo.com as shown in  FIG. 2 . The browser is made to a smaller Windows size in  FIG. 2  merely for illustration purposes. While one is still viewing the web page content, park the cursor on the interested hyperlink “Personalize”  120  of the current viewing computer screen, obtaining the parked-on URL http://www.yahoo.com/r/il. The computer establishes an Internet connection with the parked-on URL behind the scene and then displays on the front screen if the parked-on hyperlink is linkable and/or displayable. In this example, the parked-on hyperlink is linkable and/or displayable; the browser status bar displays  130  “Parked 4 minutes ago: This parked-on hyperlink is displayable. --&gt;http://www/yahoo.com/r/il.” It means the viewer has parked on the hyperlink and conducted a search 4 minutes ago. Park the cursor on any other hyperlink on the same current viewing computer screen in  FIG. 2 . The browser status bar will display whether the parked-on hyperlink is linkable and/or displayable, and if the link is to a page one has already visited or not.  
         [0019]     When the address of the browser is changed to a different URL  140  such as http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=chat&amp;b=21&amp;h=s&amp;xargs=as shown in  FIG. 3 , and the user parks the cursor on the hyperlink  150  http://www.ent.iastate.edu/chat/on the current viewing computer screen, the computer obtains and establishes an Internet connection with the parked-on URL behind the scene. In this example, the browser status bar displays  160  “This parked-on hyperlink is NOT displayable. --&gt;http://www.ent.iastate.edu/chat/.” If the user clicks on the Close button at the top right corner of the browser, the HPS program terminates. Instead of terminating the HPS program, park the cursor on any hyperlink on the current viewing computer screen and then press a key on the keyboard; in the embodiment of the invention press the F12 key on the keyboard. This prompts a message box and the message: “Back to Hyperlink Park and Search?” is displayed. Click Yes, the browser is then closed and the form  100  with the caption “Hyperlink Park and Search” as in  FIG. 1  is shown again.  
         [0020]     In  FIG. 1 , click on the “Input search strings and display matches” button  170 , and a form  180  with the caption “Input search strings and display matches” is shown as in  FIG. 4 . At the input box input “free”  190 , click Add  200 , input “Paris” into the input box, and click Add  200  again. Input “Jamaica” into the input box and click Add  200 . There are now three strings  210  in the box. And then click Search  220  to start the browser with its default URL http://www.yahoo.com as shown in  FIG. 5 . In  FIG. 5 , park the cursor on the hyperlink  230  having the text “Travel”. The status bar of the same browser displays: “{free} has --&gt;2, {Paris} has --&gt;1; {Jamaica} has --&gt;1, http://www.yahoo.com/r/ta.” It means if one clicks on the hyperlink  230 , the browser will display the linking web page containing one match of “free”, two matches of “Paris” and one match of “Jamaica”. Then park the cursor on a hyperlink on the current viewing computer screen. In this example, park on the hyperlink having the text “Shopping”  250  and press the F9 key on the keyboard. This prompts the Search Criteria dialog and the message “Add, modify and delete search strings?” is displayed as shown in  FIG. 6 . In  FIG. 6 , click Yes(Y)  260 , and change  270  the three strings, “free”, “Jamaica” and “cruise” in the input box to become two strings, “Boston” and “Tokyo”  280 , and then click Yes  290 . The computer screen displays the browser as shown in  FIG. 7 . Park the cursor on the hyperlink having the text “Travel”  300 . The browser&#39;s status bar displays the URL of the hyperlink automatically  310 . The browser then displays: “{Boston} has --&gt;4, {Tokyo} has --&gt;1, http://www.yahoo.com/r/ta.” It means if one clicks on the hyperlink  300 , the browser will display the linking web page containing four matches of “Boston” and one match of “Tokyo”.  
         [0021]     At this stage, press the F12 key on the keyboard. This prompts a dialog displaying the message “Back to Hyperlink Park and Search?” Click Yes, and the browser is then closed and the form  100  with the caption “Hyperlink Park and Search” in  FIG. 1  is shown again. In  FIG. 1 , the difference between “Input search strings. Display context with matches in text format. Edit and Save displayed context.”  330  and “Input search strings. Display context with matches in rich-text format. Edit and Save displayed context.” is that one is displaying in text format and the other is displaying in rich-text format. The steps to describe button  330  is identical to button  340 . Therefore, at here the steps to describe button  330  is illustrated. In  FIG. 1 , click on “Input search strings. Display context with matches in text format. Edit and save context.”  330 . A form  280  with the caption “Input search strings and display context with matches in text format” is shown as in  FIG. 8 . In  FIG. 8 , at the input box input “free”, click Add, input “Jamaica”, and click Add again. Input “cruise” into the input box and click Add. There are now three strings  350  in the box. Click Search  360  to start the browser with its default URL http://www, yahoo.com as shown in  FIG. 9  and to invoke the Microsoft Word program  370  as shown in  FIG. 8 . In  FIG. 9 , park the cursor on the hyperlink  380  having the text “Travel”. The status bar of the same browser displays “{free} has --&gt;2, {Jamaica} has --&gt;1; {cruise} has --&gt;1--&gt;http://www.yahoo.com/r/ta.” It means if one clicks on the hyperlink  380 , the browser will display the linking web page containing two matches of “free”, one match of “Jamaica” and one match of “cruise”. The form  400  with the caption “Display the context with matches in text format” is then displayed on the current viewing computer screen as shown in  FIG. 9 . The time data  410  “[2002/9/15 AM 10:29:18]” in  FIG. 9  is not a portion of the searched match. The time data is attached to each search match for the Hyperlink Park and Search user to keep a time track of his search.  
         [0022]     At this stage, park the cursor on a hyperlink on the current viewing computer screen. In this example, park on the hyperlink having the text “Travel”  380  and press the F10 key on the keyboard simultaneously. This sends all the data displayed in the form  400  with the caption “Display the context with matches in text format” in  FIG. 9  into  420  the Microsoft Word file named  456 .doc as shown in  FIG. 10 . Change the address of the same browser to http://www.uspto.gov/ as shown in  FIG. 11 . Park the cursor on the text hyperlink “Patents”  430 . The browser&#39;s status bar displays:  440  “{free} has --&gt;0, {Jamaica} has --&gt;0, {cruise} has --&gt;0, http://www.uspto.gov/main/patents.htm”. The searched result is displayed in the form with the caption “Display the context with matches in text format”  450 . Park on the hyperlink having the text “Patents”  430  and press the F9 key on the keyboard. This prompts the Search Criteria dialog containing the message “Add, modify and delete search strings?” to be displayed as shown in  FIG. 12 . In  FIG. 12 , click Yes(Y)  460 , and change  470  three strings, “free”, “Jamaica” and “cruise”, in the input box to two strings, “search” and “fee”  480 , and then click Yes  490 . The computer screen displays the browser as shown in  FIG. 13 . In  FIG. 13 , park the cursor on the hyperlink having the text “Patents”  500 . The browser then displays:  510  “{search} has --&gt;4, {fee} has --&gt;1, http://www.uspto.gov/main/patents.htm.” The search result is displayed in the form with the caption “Display the context with matches in text format”  520 .  
         [0023]     At this stage, park the cursor on a hyperlink on the current viewing computer screen. In this example, park on the hyperlink having the text “Patents”  500  and press the F10 key on the keyboard simultaneously. This sends all the data displayed in the form  520  with the caption “Display the context with matches in text format” in  FIG. 13  into the first line  530  of the Microsoft Word file named  456 .doc as shown in  FIG. 14 . At this stage, press the F12 key on the keyboard. This prompts a message box and the message “Back to Hyperlink Park and Search?” is displayed. Click Yes, and the browser is then closed and the form  100  with the caption “Hyperlink Park and Search” as in  FIG. 1  is shown again. In  FIG. 1 , click “Display the web page title of the parked-on hyperlink”  540  to start the browser with its default URL http://www.yahoo.com as shown in  FIG. 15 . Park the cursor on the hyperlink with the text “Travel”  550 . The browser&#39;s status bar displays: “Title of the parked-on hyperlink --&gt;Yahoo Travel-Book Air Fares, Hotel”  560 . When any of the hyperlinks in the current viewing computer screen is parked on, the browser status bar will display the web page title of the parked-on hyperlink. At this stage, press the F12 key on the keyboard. This prompts a message box and the message “Back to Hyperlink Park and Search?” is displayed. Click Yes, and the browser is then closed and the form  100  with the caption “Hyperlink Park and Search” as in  FIG. 1  is shown again. In  FIG. 1 , click “Rate and display Rating Index of the web page of the parked-on hyperlink”  570  to start the browser with its default URL http://www.yahoo.com as shown in  FIG. 115 . Park the cursor on the hyperlink with the text “Travel”  580 . The browser title bar displays: “Travel related web page, Rating Index WPTRI=20% --&gt;http://www.yahoo.com//r/ta.”  590 . It means the web page rating of the parked-on hyperlink is 20%. The higher the percentage the better the web page travel content. At the same time, the browser status bar displays: “Europe has 5 out of 24 matches, USA has 3 out of 15 matches, Australia has 2 out of 6 matches, Japan has . . . ”  600 . This means the web page of the parked-on hyperlink contains 5 matches out of 24 European travel points of interest, 3 matches out of 15 USA travel points of interest and 2 matches out of 6 Australian travel points of interest  600 .  
         [0024]     At this stage, press the F12 key on the keyboard. This prompts a message box and the message “Back to Hyperlink Park and Search?” is displayed. Click Yes, and the browser is then closed and the form  100  with the caption “Hyperlink Park and Search” as in  FIG. 1  is shown again. In  FIG. 1 , click on “View and print all search data.”  610 , and a form  620  with the caption “View and print displayed data” is shown as in  FIG. 16 . In  FIG. 16 , click on the “Searched matches of the parked-on hyperlink”  630  button. The search-match record of the parked-on hyperlinks is displayed  640  as shown in  FIG. 16 . Click on the “Rating index of the parked-on hyperlink” button  650 , and the Rating Index of the parked-on hyperlinks is displayed  660  as shown in  FIG. 17 . Clicking button  670  in  FIG. 17  takes the user back to the form  100  with the caption “Hyperlink Park and Search” as shown in  FIG. 1 . To terminate the usage of Hyperlink and Park, click End  680 .

Technology Category: 3