Xerox Corporation

Palo Alto Research Center Inc.

Warren Keith Edwards

Anthony George LaMarca

James P Dourish

Mark Webster Newman

Michael P Salisbury

Jana Zdislava Sedivy

John Ogden Lamping

James Douglass Thornton

Douglas Brian Terry

Trevor F Smith

Karin Petersen

Shahram Izadi

Karen Marcelo

Jason I Hong

Diana Kathryn Smetters

Dirk Balfanz

Hao-Chi Wong

Jana Zdlslava Sedivy

Michael F Salisbury

Karin Peterson

Jana Zdislava Sedlvy

Anthony G Lamarca

A system and method for prioritizing components is provided. Components, including at least one requester components and at least two service components are maintained. The components each include a historical context and access information. The requester component requests the historical contexts associated with one or more of the service components. The one or more service components are filtered to determine which of the one or more service components are accessible to the requester component using the access information. The accessible service components for the requester component are prioritized based on the associated historical contexts.

System and method for prioritizing components

A system and method for providing self-installing software components for network service execution is presented. A basic communication framework is established with a service host system executing a network service software component to provide a network service. Availability of the network service software component is determined and prerequisites against a runtime environment are verified through the service host system. A code bundle providing the network service software component through the service host system logically grouped with installation instructions for the network service software component is executed.

Self-installing software components for network service execution

System and method for providing secure resource management. The system includes a first device that creates a secure, shared resource space and a corresponding root certificate for the shared space. The first device associates one or more resources that it can access with the shared space. The first device invites one or more other devices to join as members of the space, and establishes secure communication channels with the devices that accept this invitation. The first device generates a member certificate for each accepting device, and sends the root certificate and the generated member certificate to the device through the secure channel. These devices may then access resources associated with the shared space by presenting their member certificates. Further, members of the shared space may invite other device to join the space, and may create member certificates in the same manner as the first device.

System and method for providing secure resource management

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates dynamic delivery of service profiles to a client. During operation, the system performs a discovery operation to allow the client to discover new services on a network. If a new service is discovered for which the client does not possess a service profile, the client to obtains the service profile from the new service and subsequently installs it, thereby enabling the client to interact with the new service.

Method and apparatus for dynamically delivering service profiles to clients

Systems and methods for enabling arbitrary components to transfer current, contextual data between each other without requiring prior knowledge of each other. The contextual data may include executable computer language instructions or a type, operating status, identity, location, administrative domain or environment information of the components or its users. The system includes a set of arbitrary components associated with one or more universal interfaces. The one or more universal interfaces may include mobile code, a contextual interface, a notification interface, a user interface and a data source interface. A first component at least has a universal contextual interface. A second component may invoke the universal contextual interface and execute associated instructions to transfer contextual data between the first component and the second component.

System and method for providing context information

A system for enabling components on arbitrary networks to communicate includes a plurality of arbitrary components, such as computers, servers, laptops, facsimile machines, copier machines and cellular telephones, including applications operating on those components, such as word processing or data base applications, connected together by one or more networks that may use the same or different protocols. A method includes a first component, such as a computer, obtaining aggregate objects from other components, such as a laptop or server. Each of the aggregate objects are associated with discovered component objects of the other components, such as the laptop or server. The first component selects at least one of the components associated with the aggregate objects, and invokes universal interfaces associated with the selected arbitrary components to communicate with other arbitrary components.

System and method for enabling components on arbitrary networks to communicate

Methods and systems for enabling arbitrary components to control communications, such as data transfers, without having or requiring prior knowledge of each other. The system includes a component that creates controller objects for a communication, such as a data transfer involving several components. Further, the component associates the controller objects with a communication session object of the data transfer, such as a data transfer session object. One or more of the components involved in the data transfer obtain the controller objects through the data transfer session object and execute source-specific instructions included in the obtained controller objects to generate user interfaces. The user interfaces enable the components to control aspects of the communication, such as the data transfer.

System and method for controlling communication

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates transferring data between system components. During operation, the system receives a transfer session object at a data sink component through a universal data transfer interface, wherein the transfer session object contains mobile code that implements a source-specific data transfer protocol for communicating with a data source component. Next, the system retrieves data from the data source component through the transfer session object. In this way, the data sink component can retrieve data from the data source component without having to be preconfigured with the source-specific data transfer protocol for communicating with the data source component.

Method and apparatus for facilitating data transfers between arbitrary components

A system and method for assessing component capability to accept and execute mobile code includes a first component coupled via a network to a second component. The first component uses a predicate object to determine whether the second component can accept mobile code, such as a data type handler object or an applet. The instructions included in the predicate object are executed in the environment of the second component, although they can be executed in the first component environment. The execution of these instructions in the second component environment causes the second component to respond to a series of basic tests, such as whether the second component has access to required libraries, software versions and/or peripherals. Additionally, a predicate object creation module is disclosed for generating predicate objects that are specific to the objects desired, such as a data type handler object or a controller object.

System and method for assessing component capabilities

Handling data at one of a plurality of components, wherein the plurality of components includes at least a sink component and a source component. The source component transfers data to the sink component, and the sink component accesses an obtained data type handler object to invoke an interface implemented by the handler object. The invoked type handler interface includes source-specific instructions that are executed by the sink component regardless of whether the data is a format that the sink natively understands.

Method and system for handling data

Methods and systems for enabling arbitrary components to communicate with each other. The communication system includes a first set of components associated with one or more universal interfaces that include mobile code. The one or more universal interfaces comprise a data source interface, a data sink interface, an aggregation interface, a mutable aggregation interface, a context interface, a notification interface or a user interface. Further, the universal interfaces associated with the first set of components can be provided to and implemented by a second set of components to enable the second set of components to communicate with the first set of components despite the first set and the second set of component utilizing different communication mediums or protocols.

System and method for enabling communication among arbitrary components

A document management method and system for representing entities as documents. The entities include tasks, persons, devices such as phones, printers, cameras, computational processes, and workflow applications such as trip approval processes and hiring processes. Various data sources are used. A data source generally has an associated property and content information related to the entity. A bit provider is configured to identify the data source having the associated property, retrieve the content information, and provide the retrieved content information as at least a portion of the document. Application interfaces are configured to provide the document to various applications.

Representing an entity as a document using a data source having active properties

A method and system for unifying component metadata includes components, such as computers, laptops or flat panel display devices and software entities, connected together by one or more networks. A method includes a first component, such as a laptop device, obtaining intrinsic metadata associated with one or more other components, such as a computer and a flat panel display device. The first component combines intrinsic metadata received from each component with extrinsic metadata of the first component, and provides the combined metadata to the other components, although the first component may also utilize the combined metadata. The components are able to obtain a consistent, unified view of the combined metadata without needing any prior programming and without requiring the use of centralized servers.

Method and system for unifying component metadata

A document management system is provided which organizes, stores and retrieves documents according to properties attached to the documents. Applications which function based on hierarchical path names communicate to the document management system through a translator. A tag is inserted into the path of a document to identify the document and represent a dynamic collection. The same tag is inserted into the path of files which support the document so that the supporting files are related to the document by the path tag. In this manner, the document management system identifies and locates all documents which are related to each other based on the tag. Thus, an application is provided with all related files even though the application may not know where the files are actually stored or retrieved from.

Growing community of inventors

San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Warren Keith Edwards