National Broadcasting Company, Inc.

Connect Innovations, Inc.

David E Schmidt

John J Rodkin

A system for automatically providing hypertext for character strings of a text file at a content server. A central server provides central control of the links of text files of a plurality of content servers in an information network such as the Internet. The central server intermittently updates each content server with new character strings and/or destination addresses, such as Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). The content servers also update the central server with new character strings. Optionally, each content server can query the central server on a real-time basis to obtain a destination address for a character string which does not have a corresponding valid destination address. The central server responds to such queries by searching its master databases, and using a search engine if required. Hit count data is maintained at the content servers and transmitted to the central server intermittently.

Growing community of inventors

La Jolla, CA, United States of America

David E Schmidt