Proposal: Internet Archive (a potential patent work around?)

Email has to be viewed in fixed width formating...

I have been thinking about this patent for a while and what seems to be 
very unique about it is that a file is downloaded and it is associated 
with an executable like MIME.  My idea is why not remove the MIME 
resolution and do everything in a different combination.  My idea is to 
make the browser dumb and run something called an Internet Archive 
automatically.

So anybody, have a read and maybe comment...  (Just an idea..)

We create something called a Internet Archive.  The Internet Archive is 
a file that acts like an file system within a file system.  The Internet 
Archive has a fixed length header, and body.  Within the header are 
references to other files of the archive.  EG it would look as follows:
             
                 "File system"
                          1         2         3         4         5
[Header        ][12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890]
 a=1 b=17 c=39   aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbccccccccccccc

The HTTP Client and HTTP Server are HTTP 1.1 protocol.

The HTML page contains a reference as follows

<html>
  <content ref="some_uri.ia" width="32" height="19" />
</html>

When the client downloads the HTML page and hits the content tag the 
data is downloaded like an Image tag.  The difference is the Internet 
Archive references a compressed set of files that the HTTP client knows 
about.  This is similar to how a zip file.  To ensure a certain level of 
security the file would be signed.

What is special about the Internet Archive is that the first file in the 
archive is executable content like one would click on an icon on a 
desktop.  Consider it like issueing an URL, not specifying the file 
desired and getting the default file (eg default.html).  The client 
would download the content and then start the executable giving the 
executable a handle to the downloading(ed) archive.  There is no 
resolution of mime types or anything along those lines, it is an 
automatic execution.  Once the executable content has started and 
retrieves a handle to the Internet archive the running content would 
manipulate the archive data however it pleased.

An optimization on the client side would be to cache Internet archives 
and the content that they reference.  For example consider the following 
scenario.

File: /archive1.ia
[Header        ][12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890]
 a=1 b=17 c=39   aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbccccccccccccc

File: /archive2.ia
[Header        ][12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890]
 a=1 D=17 c=39   aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDccccccccccccc

There are two Internet Archives, which reference the files a, b, c, and 
D.  Using HTTP 1.1 the header of the Internet Archive would be 
downloaded first.  The HTTP client would inspect which files are in the 
cache and which are not.  Then using HTTP 1.1 the individual files would 
be downloaded using byte addressing.

EG Downloading both Internet Archives would be done as follows:

*****
Http 1.1 Get /archive1.ia
ranges-specifier = 1=1-32
*****
Client has downloaded the header and is inspecting what to get
*****
Http 1.1 Get /archive1.ia
ranges-specifier = 1=1-17
*****
Client executes first file, and gives a handle to the Internet Archive, 
which is processed by the running executable
*****
Http 1.1 Get /archive1.ia
ranges-specifier = 1=17-39
*****
Http 1.1 Get /archive1.ia
ranges-specifier = 1=39-50
*****

Now user browses to different Web Page
*****
Http 1.1 Get /archive1.ia
ranges-specifier = 1=1-32
*****
Client has downloaded the header and is inspecting what to get
*****
Client retrieves content from cache
*****
Client executes first file, and gives a handle to the Internet Archive, 
which is processed by the running executable
*****
Http 1.1 Get /archive1.ia
ranges-specifier = 1=17-39
*****
Client retrieves content from cache
*****

The identification of the files could be considered like cookies or URL 
references.

An optimization could even to rename the Internet Archive with a new URL...

Eg  IA://archive1/identifier

Where running the URL IA://archive1 would automatically download and 
execute the "default file"

Christian Gross

Received on Friday, 12 September 2003 07:19:00 UTC