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Information delivery system and method

1. 40 102 106 108 110 111 112 FIG 4 5 802 518 Sheet 5 of 5 Sep 1 1998 U S Patent ayndwo5 sN Jajndwoy Jaen 431S q9M ended N S J S ga sa S Di 2 uoneysy10M Jo3nqujuo me NE Joinqujuo Ki as eue fay GUOHEISHIONM y uonejsxioM 100nq3U02 jojnquguo2 2 uonejsoM II WEI V 4aAlas Jo1nqujuo U05 1S40 OZ gamas Se SR ee v uonejsyoMw DE V 19A19S Jamal aeri ev yt a 0t ev 5 802 518 1 INFORMATION DELIVERY SYSTEM AND METHOD FIELD OF INVENTION The present invention is directed to a computer based system and method for the electronic distribution of information and more particularly for the distribution of information via the Internet to authorized recipients COPYRIGHT NOTICE A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Current computer technology allows documents and other information to be distributed electronically from computer to computer Electronic distribution is generally cost effec tive when compared with hard copy distribution methods Global computer networks such as the Internet enable information to b
2. but it is wrapped it here for clarity The first element mx start documents marks the beginning of a loop causing result exe to repeat this section through the mx end documents as long as there are headline records in the result from the query All the elements in between are involved in displaying fields of the headline records and in two cases they are used to establish hypertext links to result exe with arguments that display document synopsis and document contents Of particular interest here is that result exe will access the headline records as they arrive asynchronously from the database server 11 13 displaying them as soon as they arrive The entire result set of the query does not have to be present for display to start thus making the display to the user appear faster In fact the server is programmed to break the query to it up into pieces if sorting the results will be a lengthy process as discussed above in the section titled Optimizations When a query is broken up the most recent headlines are accessed first which is the order that they are shown in this list In addition result exe makes certain that the data is being sent to the server and therefore to the user by flushing its output queue every 5 headlines lt HR gt mx start documents mx name updatedate width 7 mx name contributor width 20 mx name pagecount width 3 align right mx name bytecount width 4 align right
3. program with these form fields as additional input The requestexe program determines from the input fields that a specific query is desired and from the value of the subaction field button 212 that the user wants a headline list as opposed to a simple headline count or a headline summary The request exe program selects the HTML template RESULTRL TPL choosing the list for mat output indicated by the L at the end of the file name for just as it did for the first example It constructs a headline query based upon the input fields for date contributor and keywords It then submits the query to the full text search server 13 since there are keywords specified in the query It then opens the HTML template and fills in the elements from the result set of the query in the same manner as for the Bulletin Board in the first example The resulting page 300 generated for display on the user s Internet browser at the user s user computer 6 8 as shown in FIG 4 The graphic listing the service name is not shown The page is similar in many respects to that shown in FIG 2 A score column 402 shows a relevancy score The summary line 404 shows the total number of documents that satisfy the query the total number displayed and query search parameters The user may then select a document by clicking on the document s headline The document transfer process takes place as follows The web server 4 issues a request to the rela
4. gt All Dates lt option value I gt 2z 22 22 lt select gt lt td gt ftr lt table gt lt table gt tr n lt table gt lt table gt tr valign top gt td width 90 gt lt b gt Keywords lt b gt lt td gt Here a default value for this field is based on the query field in the last form lt td gt lt input type text name query size 49 value mx name query quotes 1 gt lt td gt lt tr gt lt table gt lt table gt lt tr valign top gt lt td width 90 gt lt b gt Contributors lt b gt lt td gt id SELECT NAME contributors SIZE 6 MULTIPLE gt 5 802 518 35 36 continued gd This is a possible default selection the same as described above for date OPTION VALUE 1 mx name contributors match 1 true selected kal All Contributors This element marks the beginning of a loop on contributors When this element is evaluated result exe forms a query to the server that will return a list of all document contributors companies that this particular user is entitled to read documents from The request is asynchronous so as each contributor record is returned from the server request exe can fill in the inside of this loop Inside the loop is an element that displays the ID number of the contributor optionally followed by the word selected if it should be the default selection on this form based on prior v
5. in that it remains in effect for all following language elements until its value is changed Possible values Any string Use to indicate an empty string end The end attribute marks the end of a loop The attribute value indicates which type of loop the current element marks the end of Possible values document contributorlist industrylist symbollist See also start false The false attribute specifies a string value to be dis played as output for the current element if the evaluated value for the name attribute does NOT match the value of the match attribute This string may also use the Gesi feature described under format Possible values Any string Use to indicate an empty string See also match true format format The format attribute specifies simple output formatting for output of the current element Its format is the same as a C language printf format string but allows only string formatting Gei and only one occurrence of that within the format string The evaluated value of the element as a string is used as the value to fill the s in the formatting string Some examples are 20 25 30 35 45 55 65 Format string Element Value Output Result Ops ABC Corp ABC Corp 15s ABC Corp ABC Corp 15s ABC Corp ABC Corp 5 5s ABC Corp ABC C s Documents ABC
6. lt input type submit name subaction value Reset input type submit name subaction value BBoard gt input type hidden name current value query nobr table lt tr valign top lt td width 90 gt lt b gt Symbol lt b gt lt td gt The element here is evaluating the value for ticker Any element name that begins with an underscore is taken from values that are given to result exe as input from the last form that started result exe If the last form had a field text list box hidden or otherwise named ticker no underscore then the web server 4 would start this instance of result exe with an input field named ticker whose value would be the value in the ticker field in the last form If the last form had a field named ticker with a value of IBM then this element will generate a default value for this input field of IBM This allows result exe to come back to the previous state of this query form if other forms remember the value for ticker in hidden fields id lt input type text name ticker value mx name ticker quotes 1 gt Ad lt td width 86 lt td gt lt input type submit name subaction value Symbol Guide gt lt td gt lt tr gt lt table gt lt table gt tr valign top td width 90 lt b gt For Period Of lt b gt lt td gt The following list box
7. lt nobr gt The next line though has an RAL element that gets its value from the initialization file that result xe named webpubl ini The dollar sign before webserver indicates that result exe should look up the JNI entry named webserver and substitute its name here in the HTML lt h2 gt A HREF mx name webserver home imagemap mxnetlog map gt lt IMG SRC home gif mxnetlog gif BORDER O ALT Service Name ISMAP gt lt A gt lt gt Bulletin Board 5 802 518 29 continued KE lt fh2 gt lt i gt nobr lt form method POST action CGIBIN result exe lt nobr gt lt input type submit name subaction value Refresh gt lt input type submit name subaction value Query lt input type submit name subaction value Summary gt lt input type submit name subaction value AM Notes The next lines are conditional depending on whether the total number of headlines returned from a headline list query is greater than the maximum number that result exe has been configured to display When result exe is confronted with resolving the value for total it first checks to see if it has that value yet If not it then goes into a waiting mode while it waits for that value to arrive asynchronously from the database server 11 13 Once the total arrives which it does independently of the actual headline records resu
8. submit name subaction value Long Form lt input type hidden name current value bboard gt lt form gt mx endif lt BODY gt lt HTML gt MM SSS It will be appreciated that the templates and research 45 bulletin board display can include the time of submission of access program described above are of general application and can easily be modified to be used in many applications and fields Accordingly the templates and research access language should be understood as applicable to applications and fields other than for the distribution of research reports Step by Step Examples The following are three step by step examples illustrating some of the principles discussed above The first example describes what happens when the user first logs in from a non secure home pages on the WWW and receives a Bulletin Board display The second example shows what happens when the user selects the Query button that is on the Bulletin Board display from the previous example The third example illustrates what happens when the user makes a query According to the representative embodiment of the present invention there are a number of predetermined types of information displays available A bulletin board display outputs a list of the headlines of reports that have recently been received by the repository server 2 In these examples recently received is defined to mean reports that have be
9. submit name subaction value Refresh value Query gt value Summary value AM Notes value nm name changevieWmode lz value Long Form input type hidden name current value bboard gt lt nobr gt lt form gt mx endif lt BODY gt lt HTML gt RE The preceding example generates a page 100 for display on the user s Internet browser at the user s user computer 6 8 as shown in FIG 2 The graphic listing the service name is not shown The page 100 displayed in bulletin board format includes a number of action buttons 120 130 and a list of reports The action buttons 120 130 are all used as commands to result exe Each report is listed on a single line with information about the report including the time of submis sion of the report by the contributor 102 the identity of the contributor 104 the number of pages 106 and size of the report 108 ticket symbols related to the report 110 whether a synopsis is available 111 and the report s headline 112 The user can select e g click on a headline and have the complete report transferred from the repository server 2 to the user computer 6 8 The user can select an entry in the synopsis column and have the synopsis dis played A refresh button 120 if selected cause this same report to be regenerated e g to include any new reports received since the this page 100 was generated A query bu
10. V 49Al9S Joinqujuo2 c 10jnquyuo5 E e c S 0z ot a eis mue fay U S Patent Sep 1 1998 Sheet 2 of 5 5 802 518 Bulletin Board 120 122 124 126 128 130 Retest uy Sunc fares ew AT Lona Fr Latest 100 of 143 Documents Submit Company Pgs Size Symbol SYN Headline 10 41AM Equitable Securities 3 10 39AM Equitable Securities 2 10 39AM Equitable Securities 3 10 37AM Punk Ziegel amp Kn 1 10 36AM Merrill Lynch 2 10 35AM Merrill Lynch 2 10 21AM Merrill Lynch 2 10 18AM Merrill Lynch 6 10 18AM ING Barings 6 10 14AM Merrill Lynch Test 11 10 14AM Janney Montgomery 2 10 14AM Merrill Lynch Test 1 10 14AM Janney Montgomery 7 72K 75K 51K 17K 12K 55K 64K 35K 57K 10 14AM Janney Montgomery 86 469K 10 04AM Brown Brothers Ha 15 172K _10 02AM Merrill Lynch FIG 2 Roper Industries Mid States PLC Leggett A Platt HealthPlan Service ASSIDOMAN Strong CONSOL NAT GAS A Strategy Updates Daily Optimized T Eastern Europe Da CURRENT RESTRICT Adco Technologies 24 Hour Restrictions Statistical Pages Mid Atlantic Revi Colgate Palmoliv U S Patent Sep 1 1998 Sheet 3 of 5 5 802 518 Document Query 212 214 124 126 216 218 Submit Count Only Summary Board Symbol 202 For Period Of 204 Keywords Ge Contributors 208 Industries eege _ Symbol Guide 220 last7 Days Hl All Contributors Ad
11. document indexing and transfer program used to disseminate reports to the central site 1 The con tributor simply completes a form a document profile displayed on the screen of the contributor workstation 14 16 18 and at the specified time the Multex ContributorTM program transfers the report along with the information in the completed form to the central site 1 At the contributor workstation 14 16 18 the contributor completes a form relating to the report First the contributor selects a report for distribution The report is stored usually as a file in electronic form on the contributor workstation 14 16 18 or on a server or network drive coupled to the contributor workstation 14 16 18 The report may be in any standard electronic format for example Pagemaker Microsoft Word for Windows Corel WordPerfect etc The form has fields relating to the report for example title author subject date and time of creation distribution level setting distribution to a default group of investors or one of a set of predefined groups of investors and expiration time Optionally the contributor can enter additional information in the form such as for example ticker symbol industry group synopsis country region currency etc Once the report has been selected and the form completed the user issues a contribute command to the Multex ContributorTM program and the report and all the informa tion in the form is electronicall
12. fetch rows requested rows already fetched if rows still to fetch 0 begin add the restriction for remainder of the time range retrieve rows still to fetch rows end end This optimization significantly improves the response time when the time to perform the additional query is negligible compared to the time necessary to sort the full set The communication delay inherent in the connection between the Internet browser and the web server 4 may also introduce additional delays hiding some of the optimization benefits Templates According to the present invention the web server d executes a research access program The research access program provides a mechanism that enables an investor to access the information in the databases 11 13 The research access program also implements an Internet CGL which accepts input parameters from HTML forms and then using templates forms generates HTML pages comprising infor mation retrieved from the databases 11 13 The template forms are written in a novel computer language called herein a research access language or RAL that describes how to integrate the information retrieved from the data bases 11 13 into this form The template forms include RAL elements as discussed in detail below The present invention allows investors to submit queries and receive in response thereto a list of reports that satisfy the queries The queries are constructed
13. from one or more 5 10 15 25 30 45 55 65 14 search parameters including which contributing company published the report which stock symbols figure promi nently in the report when the report was published what industries are featured in the report and keyword search parameters An investor may enter search parameters at a user com puter 6 8 via a web page provided by the web server 4 When the investor selects the submit button on the web page the search parameters are forwarded by the Internet browser to the web server 4 The search parameters are used to form a query The query is submitted to the appropriate database 11 13 and a list of matching documents is gener ated This list is formatted on the web server 4 into HTML form and sent to the investor at the user computer 6 8 where the investor s Internet browser displays the list to the investor The input to the research access program of the present invention comes from HTML forms completed by investors The fields that can be searched on for document queries and the expected values of such fields include date A date range from today backwards matching a document s official release date Possible values include 0 Today 1 Last 2 Days 2 ThisWeek 3 Last 7 Days 5 Last 14 Days 7 This Month 8 Last 30 Days 10 All Dates 12 Last 60 Days 13 Last 90 Days ticker A field for ticker symbols query A field for free text for sea
14. mx name symbols width 10 mx if synopsis 1 lt A HREF result exe subaction mx name synfile mx endif mx name synopsis width 3 lt A gt lt A HREF result exe subaction mx name docfile mx name headline lt A gt mx end documents k PRE gt lt b gt The next lines display counts of the documents broken down by report type e g here research documents and morning notes Some of the output is conditional depending on a zero value mx name research Research Documents lt br gt mx name morningnotes Moming Notes mx if morningnotes gt 0 Click the AM Notes button to access them mx endif fbr lt b gt It is convenient to have the action buttons also at the end of a long list of documents but it looks unprofessional to have two sets of buttons with a short list of documents So the next section that displays buttons is identical to the button display section above except that it is conditional on how many research documents were actually displayed mx if research gt 17 lt hr gt lt form method POST action CG1B1N result exe gt 31 continued 32 gend lt nobr gt lt input type submit name subaction lt input type submit name subaction lt input type submit name subaction lt input type submit name subaction mx if total gt maximum lt input type submut name subaction mx endif lt input type
15. pre setting the ticker input item to the value selected from a symbol list The program output of course depends upon the input including which submit button was selected by the user 10 15 20 25 35 45 55 16 The user s choice of a submit button determines which template will be chosen for output Additionally templates may be preset for a user or a group of users Thus all users from a particular company or geographic area may be assigned one group of templates and all users from another company or geographic area may be assigned another group of templates Once a template file is opened the characters in it are passed directly through to standard output the normal CGI output channel until an RAL element is encountered In that case the RAL element is processed according to the rules set forth below and the output from the RAL element is also sent to standard output inserted into the stream of characters in the template The following are examples of templates that may be used resultrl tpl List form output for a query resultrd tpl Double line output for a query resultrt tpl Table form output for a query resultcl tpl List form output for a query broken down by contributor and document type during a summary resultcd tpl Double line output for a query broken down by contributor and document type during a summary resultct tpl Table form output for a query broken down by contributor and docum
16. strings appear in the name of the submit button they are treated in the following manner submit Make a query according to the parameters listed above bboard Same as submit except that the query formulated includes the requirement that only documents recently received at the repository server 2 e g since midnight be returned long Change the view mode to a double line format short Change the view mode to a list format table Change the view mode to a table format summary Same as submit but also requests generation of a summary list breaking down the number of documents that match the query by submitting contributor and the document type research document or morning call note In addition generates stored HTML files for each con tributor in the summary with one listing of the individual research documents and another for the individual morn ing call notes In the summary list generates links to the stored HTML files notes Same as summary all Change the view mode to view all documents last Change the view mode to view the 100 most recent documents query Generate a query form for the user count only Display the number of documents that match the query that matches the current parameters company search Generate a list of companies named symbols and place the list in a form from which the user can choose a company to perform a search upon choose symbol Generate a query form for the user
17. the number of elements in these two lists the authorization optimizer will build the proper restriction clause The following pseudo code describes the actual code used to implement this algorithm M for all the groups in the investor s allowed group list do begin if group is in the query contributor restriction and group is in database then add group to the allowed list end for all the groups in the database do begin if group is in the query s contributor restriction and group is not in the investor s allowed list then add group to the disallowed list end if allowed groups list is empty then deny request else if disallowed groups list is empty then no restriction else if decisionFunction allowed list disallowed list then restrict to groups in allowed list else restrict to groups not in disallowed list The decisionFunction selects the shorter of the two lists namely allowed list and disallowed list This optimization is more efficient when the database s content is close from the investor authorization since it works by trimming the unnecessary restrictions for groups without reports in the database To improve the efficiency of this optimization when the number of groups in the database grows the records could be dispatched to different tables based on groups and the same optimization algorithm could be used to select the appropriate table and generate a different restriction clause
18. vided to the user computer The user can then select request and view documents from these lists Different users may be permitted to access different subsets of the documents stored at the central repository According to the present invention the web server is coupled to at least two database search engines in the repository server At least one search engine performs at least full text searching of textual documents At least one other search engine performs at least searching on pre defined fields of information When a search is submitted by the user to the web server it is determined what type of search is required and the appropriate query e g full text search on predefined fields is formulated and submitted to the appropriate search engine The search engine returns a results set to the web server Typically the results set will comprise a list of documents satisfying the query and that the user has authorization to access This architecture ensures that the most efficient search engine is used to obtain the search results and allows more than one search to be conducted in parallel In the representative embodiment the repository server includes a number of optimizers An authorization optimizer builds the least expensive in terms of execution time search selection clause which will restrict the user s query to the database subset that the user is authorized to access A sorted queries optimizer speedily provides users with t
19. web server is coupled to the repository server and coupled to the world wide web The web server receives requests from investors for research documents that satisfy a query The web server determines whether the first database or the second database should be searched based upon the type of query The repository server transmits to the web server a list of research documents that satisfy the query and which the investor is authorized to access according to the authorization information The web server formats the list of documents according to a template form Optionally queries can be optimized The system has a control mechanism to prevent concurrent unauthorized access by two people using the same ID password combi nation 22 Claims 5 Drawing Sheets 5 802 518 Page 2 OTHER PUBLICATIONS Inside Market Data The Newsletter of Electronic Financial Information 3 pp Jun 17 1996 Waters Information Ser vices Inc Multex News Release Multex Systems Inc Doubles Its Private Capital Financing 2 pp Jun 5 1996 Multex News Release Multex Systems Inc Aligns With Top Wall Street Information Providers 2 pp Jun 5 1996 SIA Report Market Pulse Multex Raises Capital Signs with Reuters Bloomberg GFI Wall Street amp Technology 1 p Aug 1996 5 802 518 Sheet 1 of 5 Sep 1 1998 U S Patent Du 9 YUOHESHION g uon ejsoM y uopngjsxoM 41oj nqujuo 40nqujuo JOo1nqujuo2 J9 190S qoM g JaAlag
20. 02 518 15 placed in HTML page format according to changeable template forms for said HTML pages Thus input included in the HTML forms completed by investor to the research access program of the present invention from an investor can include view mode param eters relating to the format in which the investor wishes to receive the search results and other information By supply ing view mode parameters the investor can indicate to the web server 4 the desired format of information including how many records of information are displayed View mode parameters and expected values include FT Form Type Expected values are L for list format T for table format and D for double line format viewmode This field indicates whether all records that are returned by a query should be displayed within reason in the representative embodiment there is a display limit of 1000 records or whether the number of records display should be limited to a predetermined number If the viewmode value is set to all then all records will be displayed Otherwise the number of records displayed will be limited to the predetermined number To submit a query the user completes the fields discussed above and then selects a submit button When an investor submits a query the name and value of the HTML form submit button selected are treated as input In the repre sentative embodiment if the following
21. 7 Days 5 Last 14 Days 7 This Month 8 Last 30 Days All Dates Last 60 Days Last 90 Days ticker A field for ticker symbols query A field for free text for searches of the document text Logical expressions can be used contributors A list of contributor ID numbers which identify the contributors industries A list of industry ID numbers relating to the document The following fields are available within a documents enumeration listed with the data they output Analysts Names of the analysts that compiled the document AnalystIDs Numeric ID s of the analysts that compiled the document ByteCount Size of the document in PDF form in kilobytes or megabytes Contributor Name of the company that compiled the document ContributorID Numeric ID of the company that compiled the document DocID The internal system document ID number D R for a research document M for a morning call note N for a news document Headline The headline of the document The system of the repre sentative embodiment also surrounds the output from a element that displays this field with an HTML anchor to a CGI that downloads the PDF file for the document or generates an HTML page for documents with no PDF form PageCount The number of pages in the document ReleaseDate The official release date of the document Relevance A number from 0 to 1000 that indicates the relevance of 50 the document to the free t
22. 8 location with respect to the central site 1 and are coupled to the central site 1 over a proprietary network Each viewer server 30 32 includes a database 40 42 and is coupled to one or a number of viewer workstations 34 36 38 The viewer workstations 34 36 execute the Acrobat Exchange program available from Adobe Systems and the Multex Publisher Research Viewer program by Multex Systems Inc The central site 1 maintains a distribution list that lists which viewer servers 30 32 are permitted to receive reports from which contributors As a simple example if viewer server A 30 is located at company ABC Inc and viewer server B 32 is located at company RST Inc then for a particular report the repository server may distribute the report to viewer server A 30 but not viewer server B 32 When a report is received by the central site 1 the central site 1 transmits a task to each viewer server 30 32 that is permitted to receive that report that a new report has arrived and the permitted viewer servers 30 32 executes the task to pull that report from the central site 1 and store it in their respective databases 40 42 The viewer server 30 32 will then cause the title of the report to be displayed on viewer workstations 34 36 38 that are used by investors who are permitted as determined by the distribution level set by the contributor Investors can also issue queries to the viewer server s database which will return titl
23. Corp ABC Corp Documents Possible values Any valid C printf formatting string See also align width match The match attribute specifies a value which the RAL processor will compare to the evaluated result from the name attribute If the two values match exactly then the output from the current element will be the string specified by the true attribute otherwise the output will be the string specified by the false attribute Some examples are Match True False Element Value Output m Synopsis p o m D Synopsis on D Synopsis Possible values Any valid string Use for an empty string See Also true false name ame The name attribute specifies a data field to be used as the output for the current element The data field name given as the value for this attribute is the name of a field in a research document description a contributor description an industry description or a stock symbol description A list of data fields supported is given in the Data Fields sections below The field name can also specify any CGI input field for CGI programs using RAL by prepending an underscore charac ter tothe input field name or it can specify any INI file entry or environment variable by prepending a dollar sign to the entry variable name Possible values Any valid data field name or cgi input narne or Sini entry name or environment variable name
24. OARDR tpl The question mark in the name is filled in by the format that the user prefers his headlines to be displayed in Possible formats are double line output D list output L and table output T The formats that each user prefers are stored in the same place that the user s authorization code for the cookie is stored The resultexe program goes to that storage area looks up the preferred format for george 1984 discovers it is L and finishes its template selection by opening the file BBOARDRL TPL Of course other possible formats could be specified and used The template file is mostly HTML with some RAL elements mixed into it The result exe program will read through this template and will immediately output any straight HTML to standard output which the web server 4 will then send on to the Internet browser for the Internet browser to display as a page on the screen of the user s user computer 6 8 However the RAL elements will cause result exe to insert various pieces of information into this stream of output at appropriate places formatted according to the contents of the element Show below is an annotated BBOARDRL TPL indicating in italics what happens at certain RAL elements Note that as above elements begin with the characters mx lt HTML gt lt HEAD gt lt TITLE gt Bulletin Board lt TITLE gt lt HEAD gt BODY BGCOLOR MF gt
25. See also match Data Fields quotes The quotes attribute indicates whether output from the current element should be surrounded by double quotes If this attribute is set to 1 the width and align attributes are ignored i 5 802 518 19 Possible values 1 to surround output by quotes 0 to not surround output by quotes default start The start attribute indicates the beginning point of a 5 loop with each iteration of the loop enumerating the data items specified by the value of this attribute See the section Data Enumeration below for details Possible values 18 documents contributorlist industrylist symbollist See also 15 end Data Enumeration true The true attribute specifies a string value to be displayed as output for the current element if the evaluated value for the name attribute matches the value of the match 20 attribute This string may also use the 46s feature described under format Possible values Any string Use to indicate an empty string 25 See also match false format width The width attribute specifies a number which gives the desired width in characters of the output for the current 30 element If the currently evaluated output is shorter than the width value then the output is padded with spaces on the left right or both according to the value of the align attribute If the output is longe
26. United States Patent m9 Karaev et al AERE ARRA A REN 005802518 11 Patent Number 5 802 518 45 Date of Patent Sep 1 1998 54 75 73 21 22 51 52 58 56 INFORMATION DELIVERY SYSTEM AND METHOD Inventors Isaak Karaev Brooklyn George Baird New York Pavel Blazek Forest Hills Eduard Kitain Brooklyn Dmitry Prohorov Forest Hills Jacques Leisy Bridgewater Yuri Urazov Forest Hills all of N Y Stephen Zucknovich Wayne N J Assignee Multex Systems Inc New York N Y Appl No 658 966 Filed Jun 4 1996 Int CL GO06F 17 30 US oi RES 707 9 707 2 707 10 707 5 395 200 59 Field of Search ss 395 6 200 59 707 9 2 10 5 References Cited U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 5 089 956 2 1992 MacPhail sese 395 601 5 132 900 7 1992 Gilchrist et al ss 5 247 661 9 1993 Hager et al 5 262 942 11 1993 Earle 5 265 242 11 1993 Fujisawa et al 5 297 032 3 1994 Trojan et al 5 301 350 4 1994 Rogan et al 5 321 750 6 1994 Nadan seen 38020 3 333246 7 1994 Nagasaka s 5 339 392 8 1994 Risberg et al 395 333 5 410 693 4 1995 net a sss 395 611 5 452 460 9 1995 Distelberg et al sss 395 682 5 502 637 3 1996 Beaulieu et al 395 236 5 511 156 4 1996 Nagasaka esee 395 133 5 513 126 4 1996 Harkins et al 364 514 A 5 530 852 6 1996 Meske Jr
27. a list of all headlines that have newly arrived at the repository server 2 today The program has a choice of which type of database server to query for the list the SQL server 11 and the full text search server 13 Since this request does not require any full text searching for values in documents the results exe program chooses to contact an SQL server 11 If the connection fails for some reason the program will attempt to contact each backup SQL server until there are no more to connect to The program will then fall back to attempting to contacting the full text search servers 13 until it finds one that is up Failure to find any available servers will result in generation of an error message and termination of the program For the sake of this example we will assume that result ee successfully connected to the SQL server 11 This particular request would have no parameters except for specifying that only documents that have arrived on the SQL server 11 since midnight are desired The request for the document headlines is immediately submitted to the SOL server 11 which returns its results asynchronously This allows the SQL server 11 to begin processing the request while result exe moves on to its next step This next step is to open an HTML template that is appropriate to the output requested by the user In this case result exe is generating a simple Bulletin Board so it is programmed to select a template named BB
28. alue BBoard input type hidden name current value query gt lt form gt lt body gt lt html gt The preceding example generates a page 200 for display continued on the user s Internet browser at the user s user computer 6 8 as shown in FIG 3 The graphic listing the service name is not shown Using the document query page 200 the user can specify parameters for a search of reports located at the repository server 2 The user can specify one or more of the following parameters symbol 202 period of time from a drop down list box 204 keywords and logical joins thereof 206 contributors 208 and industry groups 210 A symbol guide 220 is available if the user does not know a stocks ticker symbol etc A partial list of the HTML generated for the contributors list box 208 is shown below SELECT NAME contributors SIZE 6 MULTIPLE gt OPTION VALUE 1 selected All Contributors OPTION VALUE 42 gt Adams Harkness amp Hill OPTION VALUE 47 gt Alex Brown amp Sons OPTION VALUE 128 gt Auerbach Grayson amp Co Inc OPTION VALUE 53 gt Brown Brothers Harriman amp Co OPTION VALUE 109 gt Chicago Corporation 45 55 65 OPTION VALUE 157 gt Closed End Fund Digest lt OPTION VALUE 2 lt SELECT gt A submit button 212 allows the user to submit the query as discussed in detail in example three below A count only button 214 allows the user to req
29. alue and the web server 4 knows it may then proceed handling the user s request to run result exe The web server 4 next executes the program result ee with no additional arguments because none were specified in the hypertext link to it and because the page that the request was made from was not an HTML form which would have named data fields the user could fill in to modify the request First result exe verifies that the user is not attempting access with the same ID that another user is using So result exe retrieves the value of the environment variable HTTP COOKIE which is provided by the web server 4 from the HTTP Cookie value in the request from the Internet browser result exe attempts to find a value in the cookie named mxauth Since in this example this is the first time this user browser has logged in the mxauth value in the cookie has not been set so result exe grants this user access generates an authorization string for this user stores the string where it can find it later and outputs a cookie value to the web server 4 that the server will send back to the Internet browser The next thing result exe does is to determine what type of request the user made when calling result exe Since 15 20 25 35 45 28 there are no arguments to result exe and there are no HTML form values result exe defaults to generating a Bulletin Board which is
30. alues of the form fields contributors mx start contributorlist lt OPTION VALUE m name contributorid match _contributors true os selected false s gt mx name contributorname mx end contributorlist lt OPTION nd lt tr gt lt tr valign top td lt b gt Industries lt b gt lt td gt lt td gt lt SELECT NAMEmindustries SIZE 6 MULTIPLE gt lt OPTION VALUE 1 mx name _ industries match 1 true selected gt All Industries This element and the following loop is the same as the contributor loop above except it lists the industries that the user may choose as selection criteria for documents instead of contributors mx start industrylist lt OPTION VALUE mx name industryid match _ industries rue s selected false 96s gt mx name industryname mx end industry list lt OPTION VALUE 35 S555 SS SSS 5555555 5555555 lt SELECT gt ftd tr lt table gt lt hr gt These buttons are duplicates of the ones above we found it was convenient to have them here too lt input type submit mname subaction value Submit input type submit name subaction value Count Only input type submit name subaction value Summary gt input type submit name subaction value AM Notes input type submit name subaction value Reset input type submit name subaction v
31. ams Harkness amp Hill Alex Brown amp Sons Auerbach Grayson amp Co Inc Brown Brothers Harriman amp Co Chicago Corporation ADVERTISING AEROSPACE AGRICULTURE AIR TRANSPORTATION APPAREL amp TEXTILES FIG 3 U S Patent Sep 1 1998 Sheet 4 of 5 5 802 518 Query Results 120 122 124 126 128 130 404 Refresh Summary AM Notes View AT 115 Long Form Last 30 Days Lastest 100 of 115 Documents Sorted by Score for Last 30 Days D and strong b Scr Release Company Pgs Size Symbol SYN Headline 1 Apr22 AlexBrown amp Sons 3 132K SUI SUN COMMUNITI 1 Apr22 AlexBrown amp Sons 4 89K HRC HEALTHSQUTH C 1 Apr22 AlexBrown amp Sons 9 225K IWBK INTERWEST BAN 1 Apr22 AlexBrown amp Sons 9 348K MRK MERCK amp CO 1 Apr22 AlexBrown amp Sons 93 620K ALTRA WEEKLY NOTES 1 Apr22 AlexBrown amp Sons 7 689K DTOP DESKTOP DATA 1 Apr23 AlexBrown amp Sons 5 126K DELL DELL COMPUTER 1 Apr23 AlexBrown amp Sons 5 88K GDT GUIDANT CORPO 1 Apr23 AlexBrown amp Sons 4 91K HCR HEALTH CARE amp 1 Apr28 AlexBrown amp Sons 8 345K JNJ JOHNSON amp JOH 1 Apr24 AlexBrown amp Sons 4 81K ATML ATMEL CORPORA 1 Apr24 AlexBrown amp Sons 6 94K CSCC CASCADE COMMU 1 Apr24 Alex Brown amp Sons 9 187K EVGMA EVERGREEN MED 1 Apr25 Alex Brown amp Sons 10 281K AMRDC BROADCASTING 1 Apr25 AlexBrown amp Sons 4 82K MCSY MEDIC COMPUTE 1 Apr 25 Alex Brown amp Sons 8 ODR RE ALEX BROWN
32. and password Once access is verified the web server 4 will start the CGI program named in the original HTTP request along with any run time parameters that are specified in the request The CGI program first verifies that the user making the request whose ID is passed to the CGI program by the web server 4 through an environment variable is the only one using that ID at that moment This is done by the following method a The CGI program gets the value of the Internet browser cookie and extracts the value for the named pair mxauth from the cookie b If the value is empty the CGI program indicates that this user is accessing the web server 4 for the first time since starting his or her Internet browser This user then becomes the designated current user of this ID A new random value for the mxauth part of the browser cookie is generated stored on the web server 4 under this user s ID and sent back to the Internet browser so that the Internet browser can send it back next time c If the value is not empty the CGI program indicates that this user has previously already accessed the web server 4 since starting the browser program and has been given an authorizing cookie If the mxauth value of the cookie does not match the value stored on the web server for this user then this user has been superseded by another user using the same ID The CGI does not perform the requested task and tells the user that access is denie
33. ape s Navigator program or Microsoft s Internet Explorer program to access web pages a user is simply making a request to a remote web server having a unique IP address for a file This file is stored in the user s computer local memory and is output by the browser program Typically web pages are in HTML format HyperText Markup Language Each time the user moves to a new web page the browser program makes a new request to a web server which may be the same or another web server for a file Thus although a user may provide a password to obtain a file from a web server the user typically does not log out when the user has finished with this file the user simply issues a request for a file on another web server or closes down his or her browser program 15 20 35 45 55 65 2 When a user initially accesses a web server most browser programs can provide the web server with an identification code identifying the particular browser as well as the user s Internet Protocol IP address However when a user accesses a web server through a proxy server many users may appear to have the same IP address To prevent concurrent use of a user s identification code and password e g to prevent the user from distributing the user s identification code and password for use by others When a user initially accesses a web server the web server using current password technology can prevent other access with that i
34. base 11 13 A result set a list of reports is returned and stored in memory The CGI then opens a HTML template form that comprises RAL research access language elements fills in each RAL element with data from the result set and sends the contents of the template to the Internet browser through the Web Server 4 In the case of the reports that are summarized by contributor the CGI simply condenses the list of headlines internally to summary form before using the template When the output from the CGI is received at the investor s Internet browser the browser forms it into a page of information along with action buttons that the investor can select to initiate other requests The request to present a report query form the third request listed above calls for the CGI to make two queries from the relational database 11 The first query is for a list of all contributors whose reports this investor has authori zation to access The result set of this query is used to fill a list box from which the investor is expected to pick the particular contributors whose reports the investor would like to access The second query is for a list of all industries The result set of this query is used to fill a list box from which the investor is expected to pick the particular industries that the investor is interested in These list boxes are defined in the HTML template with RAL elements that are appropriate to this particular user req
35. ce of an ID to be active at one time rely on a sign off notification to tell when the ID can be used again for sign on Because the web server 4 does not receive a sign off it is assumed that any new user is allowed to sign on with that ID but all others that are currently using that ID will now be denied further access until they sign on again which involves closing down the browser then restarting it again Furthermore step d is included to keep a user from locking himself out of his own ID if he happens to use browsers from two different locations such as home and office Thus the following scenarios apply Scenario 1 User 1 signs on to the web server d at his office The CGI marks this browser user ID combination as the current user At 5 00PM he goes home without closing down his browser At 5 45PM he signs on from his home computer The CGI now marks this browser user ID as the current user At 10 00PM he goes to bed without turning off his browser At 8 00AM the next day he arrives at work and tries to access the web server 4 again Because his 10 00PM cookie is now stale the CGI marks the office browser user ID as the current user Scenario 2 User 1 signs on to the web server 4 at her office The CGI marks this browser user ID combination as the current user She then goes to the desk of User 2 and shows User 2 this new web service using her own user ID and password to sign on to the
36. cond data base for full text searches storing searchable full text of the plurality of research reports and a web server coupled to the repository server and coupled to the world wide web the web server receiving a request from an investor for research documents that satisfy a query the web server determining whether the first database or the second database should be searched based upon the type of query and thereafter requesting that the repository server query said determined data base and transmit to the web server a list of research documents that satisfy the query and which the investor is authorized to access according to the authorization information the web server thereafter transmitting the list of documents to the investor 13 A method for optimizing search requests received from remote computers operated by users comprising storing at a central server a plurality of document profiles each document profile corresponding to a document and comprising information related to the document including a set of one or more authorization groups for the document each authorization group corresponding with a contributor of the document for each user storing at the central server a set of accessible groups specifying which authorization groups of documents the user is permitted to access receiving at a web server a search request from a user at remote computer for documents the search requesting including a limitation that th
37. d If the mxauth value of the cookie does match then this user is authorized to continue and the CGI performs the requested task Each time the user is authorized to continue the time of the access is stored on the web server 4 5 802 518 9 d A stored cookie value that is over an hour old is considered stale A user whose code does not match a stale cookie is allowed access as if the user was initially signing on as per b above Part of the rationale for this method comes from the lack of a sign off from a user When a user leaves the web server 4 to browse other parts of the WWW or closes down his or her Internet browser the web server 4 is not informed For reference it is noted that cookies are a general mechanism which server side connections such as CGI scripts can use to both store and retrieve information on a client side of an Internet connection A web server when returning an HTTP object to an Internet browser may also send a piece of state information which the Internet browser will store Included in the state object is a description of the range of URLs for which that state is valid Future HTTP requests made by the Internet browser which fall within that range will include a transmittal of the current value of the state object from the Internet browser to the web server For no compelling reason the state object is known in the art as a cookie Other systems that allow only one instan
38. defer Usage The defer element is simply a modifier for other ele ments It keeps the RAL from evaluating an element immediately and outputs the element as if it were plain text except it leaves the defer out For example option value 100 mx defer name contributors match 100 true selected gt Selection Item 100 will output lt option value 100 mx name _contributors match 100 true selected gt Selection Item 100 the first time it is processed and will this if that output is processed lt option value 100 selected gt Selection Item 100 This may leave the selected out depending on the value of _ contributors One can have as many defers as desired in an element they do accumulate That is having three defers in an element will cause it to defer evaluation until the fourth processing An Example Use of RAL The following is an example of RAL used within an HTML file A web CGI program that processes RAL can use 7 40 this example file as a template and fill in the RAL elements mx if m tes 0 in ere aig ine baat AM m with the derived values of a query This HTML has been Click the AM Notes button to access simplified for the purpose of explanation with comments in italics Aaen lt HTML gt lt HEAD gt lt TITLE gt Bulletin Board lt TITLE gt lt HEAD gt lt BODY gt lt h2 gt lt i gt BulletinBoard lt h2 gt lt i gt lt form method POST action CGIBINIresult exe gt lt inpu
39. dentification code for a predetermined period of time However if the user moves to another computer or browser program then the authorized user will be prevented from accessing the web server from the new computer or browser program Thus a secure sign on procedure is needed that prevents multiple users using the same identification code and allows an authorized user to move to another computer or browser program and still be permitted to access the secure web server When providing information via the WWW information providers can in a crude way customize the information for a user One simple example of customization is providing the user with the results of a query Here the user submits a query to the web server e g by completing a form and based on the user s request the web server creates a web page or form comprising information satisfying the query and transfers this web page or form to the user s browser program for display In such systems the program used to create the web page or form is hard coded so that if the information provider wishes to change the format of the information this program must be recoded or replaced Recoding or replacing such programs is inefficient and often time consuming Further every user who submits the same query to the web server will receive the same results in the same format Existing methods of providing information to WWW users do not enable different users to be automa
40. e loaded for use without having to take the web server off line The present invention is ideally suited for providing investment research reports to investors and investor advi 5 802 518 5 sors Brokerage and investment banking firms create mounds of investment research reports on a daily basis concerning thousands of companies and industries These reports are provided to investors in electronic form At present these reports are distributed over proprietary networks requiring the installation and maintenance of expensive hardware software and communication lines Because of this expense the number of users who have access to these proprietary networks is limited In the representative embodiment the present invention enables investment research reports to be securely distributed to investors over the Internet The present invention overcomes the disadvantages of Internet e g slower than proprietary networks less secure user interface limited to HTML format and enables investment research reports to be dis tributed to a wider range of investors who are authorized to receive such reports BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG 1 is a diagram of the overall system architecture of the present invention FIG 2 is an example bulletin board screen display FIG 3 is an example document query form screen display FIG 4 is an example query results screen display FIG 5 is a system architecture diagram of an enhanced syste
41. e distributed to a wide range of people at locations around the world One of the many advantages of the Internet particularly the World Wide Web WWW is that the communication protocols used are non proprietary thus enabling end users to access and use the Internet without the need for customized hardware or software Often an information provider wishes to provide infor mation to users on a controlled basis For example the information provider may want to provide information only to those users who have paid a fee or completed a registra tion process and also may want to restrict access to certain types of information to certain classes of users Additionally the information provider may require that the format of the information provided to one user be different from the format of the same information provided to another user or class of users Further some users only may be interested in certain types of information available from a particular information provider Users may wish that the information received from an information provider be output in a format specific to that user Existing technology allows an information provider who distributes information via the WWW to restrict access to authorized users by means of for example a user identifi cation code and or password However current password authorization methods used on the WWW have a number of significant problems When using a browser program such as Netsc
42. e documents are from a specified contributor providing the search request to the central server at the central server creating a first list of groups of documents stored at the central server listing the user s accessible groups that correspond with the specified contributor at the central server creating a second list of groups of documents stored at the central server listing the groups that are not accessible to the user and that correspond with the specified contributor if the first list is empty denying the search request if the second list is empty then constructing a search for all documents of the specified contributor that satisfy the search request and otherwise determining selecting the shorter of the first list and the second list and if the shorter list is the first list then constructing a search restricted to groups in the first list and if the shorter list is the second list then constructing a search restricted to groups of the speci fied contributor not in the second list 14 The method of claim 13 further comprising the steps of executing the search at the central server providing the search results to the web server formatting the search results at the web server and providing the formatted search results via the Internet to the remote computer 15 The method of claim 14 wherein the search results comprises a list of documents that satisfy the constructed search 16 A computer implement
43. e may then click the query button 122 on the Bulletin Board This causes the Internet browser to form a request to the web server 4 to run result exe again but since the button is inside an HTML form additional information is included in the request First when the request arrives at the web server 4 the ID is verified in the same manner described in the prior example except that the dialog box for user name and password is not displayed since the Internet browser pro vides that information as part of the request Once the user is verified the web server 4 start running result exe but with input that indicates the Query button was selected on the previous form The first thing result exe does is to try to verify that the user is not attempting access with the same ID that another user is using The result exe program retrieves the value of the environment variable HTTP_COOKIE which is pro vided by the web server 2 as received from the HTTP Cookie value in the request from the Internet browser The result exe program attempts to find a value in the cookie named mxauth Since this is NOT the first time this user browser has logged in the mxauth value in the cookie is set to the value result exe gave this user last time he was authorized The Tresult exe program compares this value to the current authorization code it has stored for this user and if the two do not match it ge
44. ed method for optimizing a query that requests a list of documents sorted by time the documents stored in a database comprising 10 25 35 40 45 55 65 42 providing a first query requesting a list of documents sorted by time and a maximum number of documents determining a count of the number of documents that satisfy the first query if the count is less than or equal to a predetermined threshold then execute the first query and return the results if the count is greater than a predetermined threshold then determine if the first query is for documents that are dated within a time range if the first query is not for documents that are dated within atime range then select a default time range as the time range create a second query comprising the first query with a restriction for documents dated within a predetermined first portion of the time range execute the second query and return the results if the number of results returned is less than the maximum number of documents create a third query comprising the first query with a restriction for documents dated within a remaining portion of the time range and execute the second query and return the results 17 The method of claim 16 wherein the maximum number of documents is set by the user 18 The method of claim 16 wherein the step of providing a first query requesting a list of documents sorted by time further comprises the step of transmittin
45. eets and the like or combinations thereof and may be in many formats It will be appreciated that any information that can be stored in digital form such as photographs videos sound recordings etc may be stored in the files received from the contributor workstations In the representative embodiment files received from the contributor workstations are con verted at a central site into predetermined format e g for printable documents a common viewing format such as for example PDF format and thereafter provided to the reposi tory server In the representative embodiment each docu ment submitted to the repository server is accompanied by a document profile comprising information organized according to predefined fields relating to the document The web server includes a web server program The web server also includes a web server helper application using the appropriate API such as for example the Common Gateway Interface CGI program BGI NSAPI or ISAPI According to the representative embodiment of the present invention each user has a user computer such as for example a personal computer with an Intel Pentium pro cessor and a fast modem that the user can use to connect to the Internet The user computer has one or more local storage devices In the representative embodiment the user computer executes Netscape s Navigator 2 1 browser pro gram However other browser programs such the Mosaic browser or Microsoft s In
46. en received that day e g since midnight on today s date The 55 65 the report by the contributor the identity of the contributor the number of pages and size of the report ticket symbols related to the report whether a synopsis is available and the headline all displayed one line per report A query results display comprises the same fields of information but for reports that satisfy a user s query Bach of the above two types of output can be displayed in other formats e g in long form which includes a two or more line output for each report listing the headline the time of submission of the report by the contributor the identity of the contributor company the name s of the authors of the report the number of pages and size of the report ticket symbols related to the report whether a synopsis is available A summary display outputs a three column table each row listing a contributor the number of research documents at the repository server 2 available for that user from that contributor and the number of morning notes at the reposi tory server 2 available for that user from that contributor EXAMPLE 1 Logging In and Getting a Bulletin Board If a user has accessed an initial non secure home page of the present invention the user can select a link to Log In 5 802 518 27 The actual link is to an address SCGIBIN result exe where result exe is the name of the CGI program that generates resp
47. ent type during a summary resultq tpl Query form resultx tpl Query count resulti tpl Symbol Guide form resultt tpl Standard HTTP header prepended to each of these templates bboardrl tpl List form output for a bulletin board bboardrd tpl Double line output for a bulletin board bboardrt tpl Table form output for a bulletin board bboardcl tpl List form output for a bulletin board broken down by contributor and document type during a sum mary bboardcd tpl Double line output for a bulletin board broken down by contributor and document type during a sum mary bboardct tpl Table form output for a bulletin board broken down by contributor and document type during a sum mary If a query is submitted with no parameters filled in the query is termed a bulletin board query and requests the most recently available documents on all subjects Research Access Language The following is a description of the RAL of the present invention RAL elements begin with a start token finish with an end token and contain attributes in between The start token is followed by a white space character Attributes are indicated by the name of the attribute followed by an equals sign followed by the value of the attribute An attribute name consists of consecutive alphabetic characters An attribute value consists of consecutive non white space characters unless it is enclosed by double quotes in which case it consists of all charact
48. ers enclosed in a pair of double quotes An end token contained within a non quoted attribute value will truncate the attribute value and the language element The following is a syntax description of an RAL element start token white space end token mx lt white space gt any ASCII character value between 1 and 32 inclusive zy ii if 5 802 518 17 continued 18 L BO M ACC mQRE EE e QE BEBE attribute attribute name lt attribute value gt attribute name match format select quotes attribute value white characters except end token gt Examples mx name headline align left width 50 mx start documents mx name synopsis match 1 true Yes false end name true width align start false empty ign lt double quotes gt lt any characters gt lt double quotes gt lt any non Attribute Names align The align attribute specifies the alignment of the output from the current element within the width indicated by the width attribute in the element Possible values left default center right See also width empty The empty attribute specifies what should be displayed as output for the current element if the evaluated output for the element before padding or alignment is an empty string This attribute is different from others
49. erver computer that runs a web server program In the represen tative embodiment the web server 4 executes Netscape s Commerce Server program The web server program allows web pages in HTML format to be accessed by investors The web server 4 also executes other programs and subrou tines as required Each investor has a user computer 6 8 such as for example a personal computer with an Intel Pentium pro cessor and a fast modem In the representative embodiment the user computer 6 8 executes an Internet browser program such as for example Netscape s Navigator 2 1 browser program The Internet browser can read files in HTML format In the representative embodiment the Inter net browser has access to a plug in program that can read files in the predetermined format In the representative embodiment the plug in is the Acrobat Exchange program available from Adobe Systems that can read files in format The user computer 6 8 can connect with the Internet via for example a commercial Internet Service Provider The web server 4 includes to a web server helper application which in the representative embodiment is the CGI common gateway interface program that is activated by investors through web pages provided by the web server 4 CGI is an interface between the web server program and other programs CGI lets those other programs process HTML forms and other data coming from Internet browsers and then lets the other progra
50. es of relevant reports The investor may then request a report which is pulled down from the viewer server 30 32 to the requesting viewer workstation 34 36 38 It is noted that the web server 4 and repository server 2 of the representative embodiment of the present invention can be implemented utilizing a logic circuit or a computer memory comprising encoded computer readable instructions such as a computer program The functionality of the logic circuit or computer memory has been described in detail above Generally the present invention has practi cal application as it enables reports and other information to be distributed speedily and searched efficiently by autho rized users in remote locations Thus the above described embodiments are merely illus trative of the principles of the present invention Other embodiments of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention What is claimed is 1 A computer implemented system for the secure elec tronic distribution of research documents over the world wide web to investors who are authorized to receive said research documents comprising a repository server receiving from a plurality of contribu tors a plurality of research documents in electronic form and a plurality of corresponding document pro files comprising information relating to each research document including authorization informa
51. et al 395 610 5 537 586 7 1996 Amram et al 395 603 5 539 865 7 1996 Gentile 395 115 5 572 643 11 1996 Judson 395 793 5 600 831 2 1997 Levy et al 395 602 5 649 186 7 1997 Ferguson essct 395 610 wn 1 9 Contributar Server A Contributor Contributor Centa Site poe Contributor Workstation A Workstation B Workstation C FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS 0 701220 AI 3 1996 European Pat Off WO 91 01608 2 1991 WIPO WO 93 15466 8 1993 WIPO WO 95 33236 12 1995 WIPO OTHER PUBLICATIONS Multex PublisherTM Multex Systems Inc copyright 1994 6 pages Gupta Udayan From The Inside Out Information Week May 22 1995 3 pages GFI News Release 2pgs Jun 5 1996 New York List continued on next page Primary Examiner Wayne Amsbury Attorney Agent or Firm Kenyon amp Kenyon 57 ABSTRACT The secure electronic distribution of research documents over the world wide web to investors who are authorized to receive said research documents A repository server receives research documents from contributors Also received are corresponding document profiles with informa tion relating to each research document including authori zation information specifying who is permitted to access each research document The repository server includes a first database for structured query searches and a second database for full text searches A
52. expression value operator value value lt string gt number variable operator lt l gt l lt gt string lt double quote gt lt any characters gt lt double quote gt number lt digit gt variable 1 lt alphabetic character lt alphanumeric characters gt gend Only one expression is allowed A variable that does not evaluate to a known value will be treated as if it were a string If a variable is preceded by an underscore _ its value is taken from a CGI input variable with that name minus the underscore If a variable is preceded by a dollar sign its value is taken from the environment variable or from the program s INI entry which matches the variable name minus the dollar sign The following example shows how the if element can be used to display some text and values only if there are actually some morning notes in the result of the query 10 15 25 35 24 continued them lt BR gt mx endif The following example shows how a CGI input variable can influence the output In this example if the contribu tors CGI form variable is not empty then some text will be output along with a built in field that displays the names of all the contributors whose ID codes are in the contributors CGI form variable mx if contributors Query on contributors mx name contributorstext mx endif
53. ext that was used in the query The higher the number the more matches on the free text SubmitDate The date the document was submitted by the contributing company to the repository server 2 Symbols A list of ticker symbols that the contributor listed as relevant in the document Synopsis A 1 0 flag that indicates whether a synopsis is avail able for the document By default the value Yes is output if the synopsis is available and is output otherwise The representative embodiment also surrounds the output from a element that displays this field with an HTML anchor to a CGI that creates an HTML page with the actual synopsis text The following fields are available outside a documents enumeration since they are summary information or status 5 802 518 21 information Their values depend on the same query used within a documents enumeration Change ViewMode Generates text that can be used within a button to change the mode used to display documents When the current view mode is set to show all documents this data field generates View Last A where is equivalent to the Maxi mum data field When the current view mode is not set to show all documents this data field generates View All HH where M is equivalent to the Total data field This text can be used as the value of a submit button in HTML and a CGI can perform the appropriate action to change display m
54. for every table targeted 2 Optimization of sorted queries The purpose of the sorted queries optimizer is to provide the investor with a fast answer even when the number of elements to sort is substantial Unlike other applications used in memory sorting data base sorting can rely on a buffer being swapped in and out to disk from the main memory When the number of items to sort becomes significant these I O operation can consume a lot of time When an investor submits a query via the Internet the repository server 2 via the web server 4 returns the first hundred rows by default the most recent reports being displayed first The actual query result may contain thousand of reports Thus to display the hundred most recent reports the database has to sort the whole result set beforc returning any answer In order to provide the investor with a quick answer the sorted queries optimizer will try to run multiple queries each for a smaller subset of the query If the query has to be sorted by the report s date the sorted queries optimizer 5 802 518 13 divides the requested time period of the query definition into multiple chunks and executes the same query restricted to every chunk Accordingly the sorted queries optimizer does not disturb the sorting order Based upon tests of real data sets it was found that it was more efficient to perform only two queries rather than a lot of them The first query is performed on the first 10t
55. g the first query over the Internet from a remote user 19 The method of claim 18 wherein the step of deter mining a count further comprises the step of providing the count over the Internet to the remote user as soon as determined 20 The method of claim 18 further comprising the step of providing results over the Internet to the remote user as soon as partial results are returned 21 A method for the secure electronic distribution of documents over the world wide web to users who are authorized to receive said documents comprising providing a plurality of templates each template speci fying an output format receiving a plurality of documents in electronic form from a plurality of contributors receiving a plurality of document profiles from the plu rality of contributors each document profile corre sponding to one of the plurality of documents and comprising information related to said one of the plurality of documents receiving authorization information for each one of the plurality of documents the authorization information defining who is authorized to access said document converting the plurality of documents into a common format storing the plurality of documents in said common format storing the plurality of document profiles in a relational database storing the authorization information for each document in the relational database extracting text from the plurality of documents storing the extracted te
56. h of the time period the second one on the remainder period For some typical queries the second subquery execution is unnecessary since the first query had already returned the number of rows requested by the investor For database 13 the retrieving of a count is orders of magnitude faster than retrieving the full result set The present invention takes advantage of this characteristic to give an immediate feedback to the investor As soon as a query is submitted the present invention performs a count and sends this information to the web server 4 The web server 4 can take advantage of this feature to return that information to the Internet browser by flushing it s internal buffers That way even when the retrieval of the result set takes tens of seconds the investor gets some feedback in seconds Ideally the sorted queries optimizer is used only for sorted queries and when the number of rows is above a given threshold The present invention uses the result of the count to trigger the sorted query optimization The following pseudo code describes the code used to implement the sorted queries optimizer M Retrieve the count if Query is sorted by a time and count gt threshold then begin if query definition contains a time range then get the time range from the query definition else use an appropriate default value add the restriction for 1 10 of the time range retrieve the first rows rows_ still to
57. has one value preselected due to the match and true parts in the elements within it These elements evaluate the value for the field date from the last form and if the value matches the value given for the match part then the displayed value for the element will be contents of the true part of the element in this case the word selected In other words for each one of these lines you could read If the last form s date field matches X then display the word selected The special case for Last 7 Days where the match value is 3 simply means that if the date value is either empty or the number three it is a match lt td gt select name date gt lt option value 0 mx name date match O true selected gt Today lt option value 1 mx name _date match 1 true selected gt Last 2 days lt option value 2 mx name date match 2 true selected gt This Week lt option value 3 mx name date match 3 true selected gt Last 7 days lt option value 5 mx name _date match 5 true selected gt Last 14 days lt option value 7 mx name _date match 7 true selected gt This Month lt option value 8 mx name _date match 8 true selected gt Last 30 days lt option value 12 mx name date match 12 true selected gt Last 60 Days lt option value 13 mx name date match 13 true selected gt Last 90 Days lt option value 10 mx name _ date match 10 true selected
58. he results set even when the number of elements in the results set is substantial The web server sends a query block to repository server for optimization and the actual database query is built by a database server Communication delays over the Internet are used to make apparent response time at the web server faster by interleav ing server access and response through an asynchronous protocol to the search engine The web server can provide customized views of the information provided to users The web server has access to a number of different template forms The template forms are written in a novel computer language called herein a research access language or RAL that describes how to format a HTML document and integrate the information from results set into this format The web server interprets the template form and creates a HTML page comprising the information from the results set The web server may have a number of template forms for each type of query for each user or class of user etc Thus each user or class of users may receive information in a format defined for that user or class of users The template forms of the present invention provide an additional advantage Whenever the information provider wishes to change the output format of the infor mation provided to users a new template form is created and used by the web server Template forms can easily be created without having to hardcode any program and can b
59. identification code from a browser program of remote user means for blocking simultaneous use of the user identi fication code with automatic re enablement after a predetermined period of inactivity from the user iden tification code means for submitting an initial query to the relational database for all documents the remote user is autho rized to access and that were received from contributors during a previous preset time period means for transmitting results of queries to the browser program for display according to the format specified in one of the plurality of templates means for enabling the remote user to submit queries means for determining if a submitted query includes a text search parameter and if so routing said query to the full text database and if not routing the query to the relational database and means for executing the submitted queries by selecting all documents the remote user is authorized to access and that satisfy the submitted query 10 15 20 25 35 45 55 65 40 8 A computer based system for the secure electronic distribution of research documents over the world wide web to investors who are authorized to receive said documents comprising a plurality of templates each template specifying an output format means for receiving a plurality of research documents in electronic form from a plurality of contributors means for receiving a plurality of research d
60. ity of contributors means for receiving a plurality of document profiles from the plurality of contributors each document profile corresponding to one of the plurality of documents and comprising information related to said one of the plurality of documents means for receiving authorization information for each one of the plurality of documents the authorization information defining who is authorized to access said document 10 15 25 30 44 means for converting the plurality of documents into a common format means for storing the plurality of documents in said common format a first database for storing the plurality of document profiles and the authorization information means for extracting text from the plurality of documents a second database for storing the extracted text means for receiving a user identification code from a browser program of remote user means for blocking simultaneous use of the user identi fication code with automatic re enablement after a predetermined period of inactivity from the user iden tification code means for submitting an initial query to the relational database for all documents the remote user is autho rized to access and that were received from contributors during a previous preset time period means for transmitting results of queries to the browser program for display according to the format specified in one of the plurality of templates means for enabling the re
61. ll who wish to access that report Every document contributed by a contributor is identified by a contributor ID Furthermore the document is assigned by the contributor to one or many document groups owned by the contributor Documents usually belong to one docu ment group The authorization information links an investor to a list of document groups Each investor may be permitted to access documents in one some or all document groups The repository server 2 constantly maintains an up to date list of all the report groups available along with the reports in the relational database 11 This list is updated in real time after a report is added and completely refreshed daily e g after report removal of expired reports To submit a query an investor must be identified by the repository server 2 As the investor s credential are checked see above the authorization information is retrieved by the repository server 2 This authorization information contains a list of report groups the investor is permitted to access Optimizations Two types of optimizations are performed by repository server 2 The first is a simplification of the authorization restriction The second is an optional optimi zation performed when the result set has to be sorted it is aimed at reducing the perceived response time for the first answers to a query One of the characteristics of the architecture of the present invention is that each query submitted t
62. lt exe proceeds with evaluating this if condition If the evaluation is false then all text until the next endif is ignored mx if total gt maximum In this example one the total number of headlines retumed is 143 while the value set for maximum is 100 So this condition is true meaning the next line gets evaluated and sent out The element named changeviewmode is intended to generate text for a button that the user can press to change from viewing only 100 headlines to view all of them So this element s value will become View All 143 lt input type submit name subaction value mx name changeviewmode gt mx endif lt input type submit name subaction value Long Form lt input type hidden name current value bboard gt The next line has the element docsshown This evaluates to a phrase that tells the user what he is being shown In this case the element s value is Latest 100 of 143 documents These values depend on the total number of records the maximum and whether the user presses the changeviewmode button later in which case it would show 143 documents lt br gt lt font gt lt b gt mx name docsshown lt font gt lt b gt br lt nobr gt lt form gt lt PRE gt lt B gt Submit Company Pgs Size Symbol Syn Headline lt B gt The next line actually does not contain any line breaks until the lt PRE gt
63. m according to the present invention DETAILED DESCRIPTION For ease of description the embodiment of the present invention described herein is that used for the electronic distribution of investment research reports and morning meeting notes reports to investors via the Internet s World Wide Web WWW However the invention is not so limited and can be used where appropriate for the electronic distribution of other types of information via other types of networks Brokerage and investment banking firms spend large sums of money creating printing and distributing thousands of graphic rich research reports to investors e g customer s remote sales offices investment advisors brokers portfolio managers etc Brokerage and investment banking firms distribute their reports only to selected inves tors e g their customers However each investor may receive reports from more than one brokerage or investment banking firm Investors require access to these reports on a timely basis It is also desirable to search all available reports for those reports that may be of interest to the investor The representative embodiment of the present invention provides an advanced secure system to distribute reports on a timely basis from brokerage and investment banking firms to investors and that allows investors to access and query a database of reports located at a remote location As used herein the terms investor and user i
64. ments in the research and morning notes categories This enumeration is used primarily for presenting document summaries by contributor to the users The following fields are available within a documents enumeration listed with the data they output Contributor Names of the contributor in a group MorningNotes The number of morning notes submitted by the contribu tor Research The number of research documents submitted by the contributor contributorlist The contributorlist enumeration loops through the list of contributors from whom documents are available This list is not based upon any query parameters if a user is entitled to see the documents of a particular contributor the con tributor s name is returned in the result set The following data fields are available within a contribu torlist enumeration ContributorID An integer that identifies a contributor uniquely ContributorName or Contributor The name of the contributor The following data fields are available after a contribu torlist enumeration ContributorCount The total number of contributors in the contributorlist enumeration industrylist The industrylist enumeration loops through the list of industries about which documents may be compiled There are no query parameters for the industry list The following data fields are available within a industrylist enumeration IndustryID An integer that identifies an industry uniq
65. mote user to submit queries means for determining if a submitted query includes a text search parameter and if so routing said query to the second database and if not routing the query to the first database and means for executing the submitted queries by selecting all documents the remote user is authorized to access and that satisfy the submitted query
66. ms send a response back the web server 4 to be delivered to the Internet browser The response can be HTML files GIF files PDF files or any data that the Internet browser can view Thus generally when an Internet browser requests a document from the web server 4 the web server 4 server program finds the document and sends it to the Internet browser However if the Internet browser requests a CGI program the web server 4 server program acts as a middleman between the Internet browser and the CGI program Other web server helper applications such as for example BGI NSAPI or ISAPI can be used in place of CGI within the principles of the present invention Access to the web server d begins from an investor s Internet browser Initially the investor can access public web pages generally describing some of the features of the 10 15 20 25 30 35 45 55 65 8 document delivery service of the present invention If the investor chooses to proceed the investor selects the log in option from the initial web page User Verification The first step the web server 4 takes in handling an investor request is verifying that the investor is permitted to access the information stored at the repository server 2 This is accomplished using the standard verification procedure built into the communication protocol between Internet browsers and web servers The web server 4 uses Netscape s Commerce Server s ability to call c
67. n the query is formulated by the investor at the user computer 6 The system of claim 1 further comprising a plurality of contributor workstations each coupled to the repository server for transmitting to the repository server the plurality of research documents and the plurality of corresponding document profiles 7 A computer based system for the secure electronic distribution of documents over the world wide web to users who are authorized to receive said documents comprising a plurality of templates each template specifying an output format means for receiving a plurality of documents in electronic form from a plurality of contributors means for receiving a plurality of document profiles from the plurality of contributors each document profile corresponding to one of the plurality of documents and comprising information related to said one of the plurality of documents means for receiving authorization information for each one of the plurality of documents the authorization information defining who is authorized to access said document means for converting the plurality of documents into a common format means for storing the plurality of documents in said common format a relational database for storing the plurality of document profiles and the authorization information means for extracting text from the plurality of documents a full text database for storing the extracted text means for receiving a user
68. nclude any end user who is permitted to receive or access infor mation via the present invention such as for example customers of brokerage and investment banking firms employees of brokerage and investment banking firms investment advisors brokers bankers portfolio and fund managers journalists analysts economists university professors MBA students etc Referring now to the drawings and initially FIG 1 there is illustrated an overall system architecture according to the present invention A central repository server 2 is coupled via a central site 1 to one or more remote contributor workstations 14 16 18 The contributor workstations 14 5 10 15 20 35 45 55 65 6 16 18 are used by brokerage and investment banking firms to submit reports to the repository server 2 Optionally the contributor workstations 14 16 18 may be coupled to the repository server 2 via proprietary network comprising a plurality of contributor servers 20 22 Alternatively or additionally a contributor workstation may provide reports to the repository server 2 via the Internet In the representative embodiment the contributor work stations execute a program called Multex Contributor M described in detail in the user manual titled MX Contributor User Guide available from Multex Systems Inc of New York N Y and expressly incorporated herein by reference The Multex Contributor program is a real time Windows based
69. nerates output that tells the user that access has been denied If the values do match then result exe proceeds By looking at the value for the CGI form variable subaction the result exe program can determine that the user selected the query button 122 on his last request At this point the program selects an HTML template appropriate to this request which is named RESULTQ TPL To service a query form result exe connects to the appropriate data base server 10 13 as described in example one Once connected it then opens the HTML template and starts generating output An annotated version of the RESULTQ TPL template is shown below 5 802 518 33 E lt html gt lt head gt title gt Document Query lt title gt lt head gt lt body BGCOLOR fiff gt lt nobr gt lt h2 gt lt A HREF mx name webserver hcyme imagemap mxnetlog map IMG SRC 91 home gif mxnetlog gif BORDER O ALT Service Name 1SMAP gt lt A gt b Document Query m2 ln lt nobr gt lt nobr gt lt form method POST action CG1B 1N result exe gt Generate the buttons for commands to be executed from this form input type submit name subaction value Submit gt input type submit name subaction value Count Only input type submit name subaction value Summary lt input type submit name subaction value AM Notes
70. o a database 11 13 is submitted as a structure description rather than a fully formed SQL statement The actual SQL statement is built by the database server 11 13 itself Thus the optimizations can take place on the raw query definition i e a structure definition before executing the query This allows for more powerful query optimization and immediate query defini tion analysis to select the proper mechanism to execute it 1 Optimization of the authorization restriction In query definition the investor can restrict the query to a subset of the contributors the investor has access to This feature is used to implement queries like What s new today from XYZ and All reports relating to automobiles from PQR 15 20 25 30 35 45 35 65 12 The purpose of the authorization optimizer is to build the least expensive with respect to execution time selection clause which will restrict the investor s query to the data base subset the investor is allowed to access The authorization optimizer uses this database content information combined with the investor s accessible groups as well as the contributor restriction in the query to build the restriction clause using the following method The repository server 2 builds two lists of groups a the list of groups the investor has requested and has access to b the list of groups the investor has requested but doesn t have access to Based on
71. o make it easier to read running this HTML it will not give the desired results mx start documents mx name updatedate width 7 mx name contributor width 20 mx name pagecount width 3 align right mx name bytecount width 4 align right mx name symbols width 10 mx if synopsis 1 lt A HREF result exe subaction mx name synfile gt mx endif mx name synopsis width 3 lt A gt lt A HREF result exe subaction mx name docfile gt mx name headline lt A gt mx end documents lt PRE gt lt b gt Display the final counts mx name research Research Documents lt br gt mx name momingnotes Morning Notes mx if momingnotes gt 0 Click the AM Notes button to access them mx endif lt br gt lt b gt If there were more than a screenful of headlines displayed create another form and display the control buttons again just for the user s convenience mx if research gt 17 lt hr gt form method POST action CGIBIN result exe gt lt input type submit name subaction value Refresh gt lt input type submit name subaction value Query gt input type submit name subaction value Summary gt lt input type submit name subaction value AM Notes gt mx if total gt maximum lt input type submit name subaction value mx name changeviewmode mx endif lt input type
72. ocument profiles from the plurality of contributors each research document profile corresponding to one of the plurality of research documents and comprising infor mation related to said one of the plurality of research documents means for receiving authorization information for each one of the plurality of research documents the autho rization information defining who is authorized to access said research document a relational database for storing the plurality of research document profiles and the authorization information means for extracting text from the plurality of research documents a full text database for storing the extracted text means for receiving a user identification code from a browser program operated by a remote user means for submitting an initial query to the relational database for all research documents the remote user is authorized to access and that were received from con tributors during a previous preset time period means for transmitting results of queries to the browser program for display according to the format specified in one of the plurality of templates means for enabling the remote user to submit queries means for determining if a submitted query includes a text search parameter and if so routing said query to the full text database and if not routing the query to the relational database means for optimizing predetermined queries means for executing the submitted queries by selec
73. odes ContributorFilter Displays the name of the current contributor being used to filter documents ContributorsText Displays the names of all contributors whose codes appear in the _ contributors field Count Displays the total number of documents actually retrieved by a query as opposed the number of documents that actually match the query When the view mode is set to show all documents this field is equivalent to the Total data field Otherwise it is equivalent to the Maximum data field CountFilter Displays the number of documents that match the current document type and contributor filter DocsShown Generates variable text depending on the view mode all documents or the limited 100 set If the view mode is set to return all documents this data field generates the text HH Entries where H is equivalent to the Count data field If the view mode is not set to view all entries the data field generates the text Last of Entries where H is again equivalent to the Count data field and is equivalent to the Total data field DocTypeFilter Generates the text Research Morning Call Notes or News depending on the current value of the document type filter IndustriesText Displays the names of all industries whose codes appear in the _ industries field Maximum This data field is the limit on the number of documents to be retrieved when the view mode is n
74. onse pages to user actions The directory SCGIBIN is actually mapped on the non secure web server to the directory CGIBIN on the secure web server 4 This means that home pages are handled by the non secure server but actual access to reports is handled by the secure web server 4 When the secure web server 4 receives the request to run result exe the web server 4 first checks the request to ensure that the Internet browser making the request is authorized to access the web server 4 If the Internet browser is not authorized the web server 4 prompts the Internet browser to ask the user via a dialog box for a valid user ID and password In this example the user enters the name george 1984 and the password wombat and then selects OK The web server 4 now verifies that the user is authorized This is done by passing control to a subroutine named mxp_auth which consults the relational database s 11 list of valid users and their passwords In this example the relational database 11 is an SQL server If the given user ID and password matches a database entry the subroutine sets up the envi ronment variables HTTP CID as 1984 to represent the company ID of the user taken from the 1984 part of his ID HTTP UID as 2096 to represent the user s internal ID taken from the SQL sever s records and HTTP MXP as wombat to represent the user s password The subrou tine then returns a REQ PROCEED v
75. ot set to show all documents In the representative embodiment this value is 100 by default or the value specified in the MaxRows entry in WEBPUBL INI MaxRows If the view mode is set to show all documents this data field is equivalent to the Total field Otherwise it is equivalent to the Maximum field MorningNotes This data field is the number of morning call notes attributed to the current contributor specified in the con tributor filter News This data field is the number of news stories attributed to the current contributor specified in the contributor filter Research This data field is the number of research documents attributed to the current contributor specified in the con tributor filter 10 25 35 45 55 65 22 Total This data field is the total number of documents that match the current query parameters regardless of view mode contributor filter or document type filter ViewMode This data field generates all if the current view mode is set to view all documents that match a query This field generates last if the current view mode is set to view only the last N documents that match a query where N is equivalent to the Maximum data field contributors The contributors enumerations is the same as a docu ments enumeration except that the documents are grouped by their contributors The only fields that can be displayed are the contributor names and the number of docu
76. r than the width attribute the output is truncated on the right and the last three characters i are replaced with periods to indicate a truncated value Possible values Any valid integer 40 See also align Data Enumeration The RAL attributes start and end are used to mark 45 elements that are to be repeated during the enumeration of data objects For example mx start documents mx name headline mx end documents would cause RAL to enumerate all documents that match the current query outputting the headline of each one By placing the end element on the next line it also causes the headlines to be separated by an end of line character The available enumerations are listed below All enumerations are filtered so as only to include documents the user that is making the enumeration is authorized to access That is not all users see the same results when making enumerations according to their level of authorization documents The documents enumeration loops through the result set of a query on the database of research documents In the current implementation the input parameters to the query are taken from CGI input items from an HTML page They are daterange An integer from 0 to 12 specifying a date range for the release date of a document The possible values are 55 60 65 20 W Today 1 Last 2 Days 2 ThisWeek 3 Last
77. rches of the document text Logical expressions can be used including the ampersand amp for a logical and and the pipe character CT for a logical or Parenthesis can be used for group ing expressions and double quotes can be used to group words into phrases All free text searches are not case sensitive For example microsoft Find documents with microsoft in their text ibm amp microsoft Find documents with ibm and microsoft in their text Find documents with either ibm or microsoft in their text ibm i microsoft ibm amp Find documents with ibm microsoft and either microsoft or l apple apple in their text earnings report Find documents with the phrase earnings report in their text contributors A field for a comma separated list of contribu tor ID s industries A field for a comma separated list of industry ID s There are a number of options for displaying information to an investor Some of these options are based on technical limitations such as line speed while others are based on the preferences of the investor e g tabular output prose etc In order to react quickly to changes in display requirements the research access program of the present invention utilizes template forms to format HTML pages comprising search results According to the present invention information retrieved from the databases 11 13 is 5 8
78. t type submit name subaction value Refresh gt lt input type submit name subaction value Query lt input type submit name subaction value Summary lt input type submit name subaction value AM Notes gt Compare the total matching records to the maximum allowed in the display If there are more show the change viewing mode button mx if total gt maximum lt input type submit name subaction value mx name changeviewmode mx endif lt input type submit name subaction value Long Form lt input type hidden name current value bboard lt br gt Display the total number of documents that matched and how many will be displayed in this list lt b gt mx name docsshown lt b gt lt br gt lt form gt lt PRE gt 5 802 518 25 continued 26 bm lt B gt Submit Company lt B gt lt HR gt Pgs Size Symbol Syn Headline This part is a document enumeration The enumeration shows the fields named updatedate contributor pagecount bytecount symbols synopsis and headline Around the synopsis field there is a use of the if element which decides whether to output a hypertext links to the synopsis There is no if element for the lt A gt because an extra one doesn t hurt most browsers The following lines are split up with newlines t
79. tawa Canada coupled to a storage device 12 5 802 518 7 The information contained in the form is indexed in the relational database 11 to allow retrieval of the report by searching on such fields e g searches by author date industry etc Where necessary information in the form received from the contributor is mapped into common terminology as used by the relational database 11 For example the terms sports utilities and minivans may be mapped and stored as the term automobile ASCH text is extracted from the report and stored in the full text database 12 13 for full text searching The repository server 2 provides investors with lists of reports received from the contributor workstations 14 16 18 and allows investors to request lists of reports that fit certain criteria The investor can select reports from these lists to down load view and or print Generally lists of reports can be generated by the web server 4 The contributor of a report can be notified that a particular investor has accessed that report The repository server 2 maintains for each report a list of those who accessed that report The repository server 2 can transmit that list to the report s contributor on a regular basis and or when requested by the contributor The repository server 2 is coupled to a web server 4 which in turn is coupled to the Internet via for example a T1 or ISDN connection The web server 4 is a high powered s
80. ternet Explorer 2 0 browser could also be used As used herein the browser programs executed by the user computer will be termed Internet browsers When the user initially accesses the web server the user is required to provide a user identification code ID and a password The web server submits a login request to the CGI program to verify that no other user is using the same ID According to the present invention a user is permitted to access the web server from a different user computer or using a different Internet browser however the present invention prevents the user or other users from concur rently accessing the web server from more than one com puter or Internet browser using the same ID 10 15 20 25 35 45 55 65 4 Once the user has provided the ID and password the repository server will determine what information that user is authorized to receive According to the present invention each user has authorization to access all or a subset of the information stored at the repository server In the representative embodiment the repository server can provide the user with a list of new documents that have been recently received by the repository server and which that user is authorized to access The user may also request a list of documents that fit certain user specified search criteria A list of the documents that match that search criteria and which the user is authorized to access is pro
81. the database program or search 5 802 518 3 engine can take advantage of communication delays when serving multiple users Thus in summary an Internet information delivery sys tem is needed that has a secure but flexible password control mechanism so that information is provided only to users who are authorized to receive it that efficiently retrieves any requested information and that customizes the views of information provided to users in a flexible and robust manner SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides an electronic information distribution system that allows remote users to receive access and query information that is stored in electronic form at a central server called a repository server Ideally users communicate with the repository server via the Inter net The repository server is coupled to the Internet by a web server The repository server comprises or is coupled to a plurality of databases of information stored in electronic form Preferably the repository server is coupled to one or more remote contributor workstations The information that is stored at the repository server is received from the contribu tor workstations in electronic form According to the repre sentative embodiment of the present invention the informa tion received from the contributor workstations are files comprising one or more documents These documents typi cally would contain text data charts graphs spreadsh
82. tically provided with different views of the information Thus a procedure is needed to enable the provision of customized views of requested information to WWW users When a user submits a query to a web server the web server will typically format and submit the received query to a database program or search engine There can be many types of queries that a user submits via an information provider s web server For example some queries may request information based on categories contained in a relational database e g all presidents who were born in Virginia while other queries may require full text scarches of textual documents e g all documents containing the words sell and TBM Currently information providers maintain one database of information that is used to obtain the results of all types of queries However while a database search engine may be fast and efficient in obtaining search results for some types of queries it may be slow and inefficient in obtaining search results for other types of queries Moreover when responding to queries via the WWW the web server is accessed by many users Due to communica tion delays over the Internet it is wasteful to tie up the database program or search engine until each user has received the full results of the user s query It would be desirable in some instances to provide a search mechanism that allows asynchronous searching of a database by mul tiple web users such that
83. ting all research documents the remote user is authorized to access and that satisfy the submitted query 9 The system of claim 8 further comprising means for blocking simultaneous use of the user identification code with automatic re enablement after a predetermined period of inactivity from the user identification code 10 The system of claim 8 further comprising means for converting the plurality of research documents into a common format and means for storing the plurality of research documents in said common format 11 The system of claim 8 further comprising means for enabling the remote user to select a research document from the results of queries and means for transmitting the selected document to the remote user s browser program 12 A computer implemented system for the secure elec tronic distribution of research documents over the world wide web to investors who are authorized to receive said research documents comprising a repository server receiving from a plurality of contribu tors a plurality of research documents in electronic form and a plurality of corresponding document pro files comprising information relating to each research document including authorization information specify 5 802 518 41 ing who is permitted to access each research document the repository server including a first database for structured query searches storing the information from the plurality of document profiles and a se
84. tion specify ing who is permitted to access each research document the repository server including a first database for structured query searches storing the information from the plurality of document profiles and a second data base for full text searches storing searchable full text of the plurality of research reports and a web server coupled to the repository server and coupled to the world wide web the web server receiving a request from an investor for research documents that satisfy a query the web server determining whether the first database or the second database should be searched based upon the type of query and thereafter requesting that the repository server query said determined data base and transmit to the web server a list of research 5 802 518 39 documents that satisfy the query and which the investor is authorized to access according to the authorization information the web server thereafter formatting the list of documents according to a template form and transmitting the formatted list of documents to the investor 2 The system of claim 1 wherein the template form is selected by the investor 3 The system of claim 1 wherein the template form is selected by the web server according to the identity of the investor 4 The system of claim 1 further comprising a user computer used by the investor and executing a browser program the user computer coupled to the world wide web 5 The system of claim 4 wherei
85. tional database 11 asking whether the user is permitted to view the selected document Assuming that the selected SQL server is available if not the backup procedure described above takes place then the SQL server returns whether the use is so permitted If the user is not permitted then the web server 4 generates a HTML page using an error template If the user is permitted the requested document file is opened the web server 4 generates the appropriate HTTP header and outputs it to STDOUT and the document file is read and its contents is output to STDOUT At the user computer 6 8 the Internet browser program launches a helper application to allow the user to read print and save the document Although the invention has been described with reference to a particular embodiment and arrangement of parts fea tures and the like the above disclosure is not intended to exhaust or limit all possible embodiment arrangements or features and indeed many other modifications and varia tions will be ascertainable to those skilled in the art For example the central site 1 may distribute reports by other networks in addition to the Internet FIG 5 illustrates an enhanced system architecture according to the present invention In the enhanced system the central site 1 is also coupled to one or a number of viewer servers 30 32 Typically the viewer servers 30 32 are located at a remote 16 15 25 35 45 50 55 60 65 3
86. tton 122 if selected causes a query form to be generated as explained in example 2 below A summary button if selected causes a summary report to be generated The summary report comprises a three column table each row listing a contributor the total number of research documents at the repository server 2 available for that user from that con tributor and the total number of morning notes at the repository server 2 available for that user from that con tributor An AM Notes button 126 if selected causes only morning notes to be displayed A View All button 128 if selected causes all headlines to be displayed regardless of how many A long form button 130 if selected causes a page to be generated that includes a two lines for each report listing the headline the time of submission of the report by the contributor the identity of the contributor company the name s of the authors of the report the number of pages and size of the report ticket symbols related to the report whether a synopsis is available A summary line 132 shows the total number of documents that satisfy the query in this case all documents that arrived at the repository server 2 since midnight and the total number displayed 20 25 35 45 55 EXAMPLE 2 Requesting a Query Form In the preceding example the user logged in and was presented with a Bulletin Board If the user wishes to make a query for documents that match certain criteria h
87. uely IndustryName The name of the industry symbollist The symbol list enumeration loops through all ticker symbols company names that match a given input string In the representative embodiment the input string is taken from the CGI input item named company If a company name contains the input string the ticker symbol company name is included in the result set for enumeration The following data fields are available within a symbol list enumeration SymbolID The stock ticker symbol recognized for a company on the stock market exchange where it trades SymbolName The name of the company 5 802 518 23 Program Control RAL allows logical control over its output The if endif and defer allow a template to make decisions about output based on run time values of CGI input variables environ ment or INI variables and the values of data fields from cnumerations If a if element evaluates to FALSE then all text and elements between the starting if element and its terminating endif element will not be passed through to output If a defer element is used inside a regular RAL element then the rest of the element is not evaluated and is simply passed through to output without the defer element This allows a template to evaluate some RAL elements and leave others to be evaluated later if the output is used as a template itself if and endif Usage mx if expression mx endif where
88. uest When a query is made the web server 2 selects the appropriate database to which the query is first routed In summary if the query involves text matching e g a full text search within reports the query is passed to the full text database 13 If the query does not involve text matching within reports the query is passed to the relational database 11 In the representative embodiment each database com prises a number of database servers networked together for example database server 13 comprises a network of data base servers The database servers that are available to the CGI are listed in the WEBPUBL INI file on the web server 4 When satisfying a non text matching query the CGI will attempt to use an SQL type server e g 11 first If that database server is not available the CGI will automatically switch to the next available SQL database server If all SQL database servers are not available then the query will be passed on to full text database server e g 13 When satisfying a text matching query the CGI will attempt to use an fuil text database server e g 13 Again if that server is not available then its backup will be tried and so on until either a server can satisfy the query or all servers have been found to be down In addition to this automatic backup system the CGI practices semi random selection of servers 11 in an effort to balance the load on the servers This means that the order that ser
89. uest a count of all docu ments available to that user that satisfy the query parameters A reset button 216 if selected clears the form A BBoard button if selected causes a bulletin board to be created for the user as per the first example above EXAMPLE 3 The User Makes a Query In the preceding example the user requested a form from which he could make a query This example will step through the user s actions and the result it produces For this example assume that the user has decided to select documents from Alex Brown amp Sons released over 5 802 518 37 the last 30 days that have the phrase strong buy in them To do this in the query form the user selects the Last 30 Days item in the period of time combo box 204 enters strong buy quotes included to indicate a phrase instead of two independent words in the keywords edit window 206 and selects Alex Brown amp Sons in the contributors list box 208 To get the list of headlines that match this request the user selects the submit button 212 The request that goes to the web server 4 at this point is to run result exe again but there is additional information about date keywords and contributors in the request Fields are also defined for industries and ticker symbols but they are empty fields because the user did not specify anything for them After the web server 4 verifies the user as described above it starts the request exe
90. ustom verification subroutines when a user tries to access CGI s and web pages The web server 4 executes a subroutine and using Netscape s NSAPI receives the ID and password that the investor is asked to provide by the server browser and then verifies the ID and password against a database of authorized users the user database maintained at the repository server 2 If the user is verified the Internet browser will be given a verification signature An investor who is not in the user database or enters an incorrect password is denied access to CGI s and web pages on the web server 4 by simply having the subroutine return an Access Denied flag to the web server 4 This subroutine maintains an open connection to the user database to improve performance Whenever an investor makes a query for a list of reports the investor s Internet browser sends an HTTP hypertext transfer protocol request that represents what the user wants to the web server 4 If the request does not have a verifi cation signature attached to it the web server 4 sends a command back to the Internet browser causing it to prompt the user for an ID and password The Internet browser will then return this information to the web server 4 which will verify that the user is entitled to access the reports stored at the repository server 2 If the user is verified the Internet browser will be given a verification signature If not the user will be prompted again for his ID
91. vers are tried is not always the same The HTML template forms that the CGI uses rely on forms that are part of HTML This allows the users to select buttons on the pages to submit requests Each page may have several buttons and the names of the buttons the actual visible text in them are used in the CGI to identify which button the user selected and therefore which action to perform Parameters for a query are taken from other form constructs such as text fields list boxes and combo boxes When a form does not actively show a parameter value but it would be convenient for the CGI to maintain its value for the next user request the values are stored as hidden fields in the form A hidden field is a form construct defined in HTML for just this purpose This allows the parameters of a query to be stored in a page that shows the results of a query so that they can then be used again as starting values when the user requests the report query form Authorization In the representative embodiment each user has authori zation to access a subset of the information stored at the repository server 2 The contributor determines who has access to each report For example an investment bank may designate that one of its reports can be accessed only by its employees and certain investors e g its customers Another report may be designated as accessible by employ ees only A third report may be released for general distri bution to a
92. web server 4 The CGI marks User 2 s browser as the current user of User 1 s ID After a few minutes User 1 returns to her original computer to find that the CGI is denying her access User 2 has her locked out by using her ID This user verification system is particularly well suited in information delivery systems where a fee is charged per ID password Web Server The web server 4 uses a single CGI program that handles all the types of requests that a user makes to the web server 4 In the representative embodiment the types of requests that the CGI program can handie are 10 15 20 30 35 40 45 55 65 10 Return a list of reports recently received at the repository server 2 Reformat the current list of reports Present a form that allows the user to specify criteria for reports the user wants to access Return a list of reports matching the criteria in the form mentioned above Return a list of reports summarized by report contributor Return a list of reports authored by a specific contributor These requests are handled similarly except for the request for the form that the user fills in to specify criteria for reports that the user wants to access Except for the third request listed above a query is formulated whose parameters are determined by the run time arguments given to the CGI from the original HTTP request from the investor by the web server 4 and sent to the appropriate data
93. xt in a full text database receiving a user identification code from a browser pro gram of remote user blocking simultancous use of the user identification code automatically re enabling use of the user identification code after a predetermined period of inactivity from the user identification code 5 802 518 43 initially executing a first query to the relational database for all documents the remote user is authorized to access and that were received from contributors during a previous preset time period outputting results of the first query according to the format specified in one of the plurality of templates enabling the remote user to submit queries for each submitted query determining if the query includes a text search parameter and if so routing said query to the full text database and if not routing the query to the relational database executing the submitted queries by selecting all docu ments the remote user is authorized to access and that satisfy the submitted query and outputting the results of the submitted query according to the format specified in one of the plurality of templates 22 computer based system for the secure electronic distribution of documents over the world wide web to users who are authorized to receive said documents comprising a plurality of templates each template specifying an output format means for receiving a plurality of documents in electronic form from a plural
94. y transmitted to the contribu tor server 20 22 In the representative embodiment the reports are pushed up from the contributor servers 20 22 to the central site 1 At the central site 1 the reports are processed Typically the central site comprises a network of computer processors At the central site 1 each report is converted in to a predetermined a predetermined format In the representative embodiment all reports received at the central site 1 are converted at the central site 1 into a format that can be read by the Acrobat Exchange program available from Adobe Systems The reports are then provided by the central site 1 to the repository server 2 Where desired the repository server 2 can also receive store and enable the distribution of other useful information such as for example news reports received from wire services government reports product reviews etc The repository server 2 comprises or is coupled to at least two database servers 11 13 Each database server is coupled to a database storage device 10 12 A relational database 10 11 allows field searching In the representative embodiment the relational database 10 11 is an SQL database server 11 coupled to a storage device 10 A full text database 12 13 allows word or text searching In the representative embodiment the full text database 12 13 is a full text search database server 13 for example a full text search engine available from Fulcrum of Ot

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