The US Patent & Trademark Office published information about three new Apple patents, including one for managing internet transactions, another for managing as well as searching metadata, and a third for a display actuator, as described in yesterday's patent filing with the European Patent Office. Apple's internet transaction patent covers an object-oriented approach to develop and manage internet transactions, which appears to be related to Apple's Java-based WebObjects software, as the assignee is Next Software -- the original developer of WebObjects. Next Software was acquired by Apple in the late 90s in a deal that also brought Apple co-founder Steve Jobs (along with his management team) back to Apple. The internet transaction patent filing lists January 6th, 2006 as the original filing date; however, Apple's filing references Next patents dating back to 1995 and 1994. Using traditional internet software development lingo, Apple's patent describes an object-oriented, transactional model that can build dynamic queries for data based on either user input or data store within an external database."Some or all of a Web page can be generated dynamically using input received in a returned page, generated at runtime, or retrieved from an external data source (e.g., database or electronic mail system)," Apple wrote in its filing. "When the Web page definition is rendered, the information contained in template(s), declaration file(s), and object(s) are used to generate standard definitions. State information is maintained across transactions. Using state information, virtual applications, sessions, transactions, and pages can be implemented. Self-contained modules, or components, provide the ability to share implementations and create multi-content documents. Event objects can be used to assist in event handling management."
A second patent filing covers methods for managing data in a data processing system and systems for managing data. In what may be a reference to Apple's Spotlight technology -- introduced as a revolutionary method of searching within Mac OS X Tiger -- the filing describes "systems and methods for managing data, such as metadata," which it says can be created by several different software applications.
The captured and stored metadata is then available for searching, according to the filing. Apple also said that the type of information in metadata for one type of file differs from the type of information in metadata for another type of file, indicating that the stored data is dependent on content type.
Spotlight-like searches
In addition to the creation and management, Apple's filing also describes various methods of accessing the stored data. It references a combined search that would allow a single search interface to generate results from both metadata and indexed/non-indexed content of the actual data files.
"In one implementation of this method, a single search interface may be provided to search all of the metadata for all of the different files created by the different software applications, thereby allowing a single search to search through all of the metadata for all of the files created by the different software applications. Further, the single search may also search through non-metadata such as the indexed (or non-indexed) content of the actual data files," Apple wrote in its filing.
Alluding to many of the features of currently implemented Spotlight search technology, the filing also describes the results and their specific formatting, offering examples and alternatives for display which include column views, icon views, grouping, limited display of results, and a combined icon and list view for different portions of the results.
"Further, the displayed results may be limited to a predetermined number (or a dynamically generated number) for each category so that a limited viewing can still display multiple categories within a search result window," the filing says.
The filing also appears to reference 'Smart Folders', a new feature introduced in Mac OS X Tiger. The feature allows users to store search queries as a folder on the desktop to quickly locate files: "Smart Folders contain documents grouped together based on search criteria that you define instead of their physical location," according to Apple's Web page.
"Further, a search query can be saved as a folder which appears within a user configurable portion of the search results window, and a selection of the folder causes another search to be performed using the saved search query (sometimes also referred to as search criteria)," Apple wrote in the patent filing. "A display of the search results from the saved search query can then be sorted or further searched to limit the results to a subset of the original matches from the saved search query."
The filing also references "live searches" (the ability to search for items as the user enters information), simultaneous searches of both metadata and indexed content, and selecting groups of data files from a search result.
Earlier this week, we noted that Apple was granted a patent for its Mac mini as well as fluid cooling and image decompression.
Research and information provided by Neo.
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