The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 28, 1999
Filed:
Sep. 19, 1997
Kevin K Watson, Flower Mound, TX (US);
William J Johnson, Flower Mound, TX (US);
MCI Communications Corporation, Washington, DC (US);
Abstract
A method and system for automatic object refresh. A target object specification is associated to a source object specification for performing a replacement (refresh) of at least one target object with a corresponding source object. When a target object is accessed for the first time, or released from a last access, one or more source objects may replace (refresh) the locations of one or more corresponding target objects. A comparison of values of an identical attribute may be performed, such as a date/time stamp, or trap count, of corresponding source and target objects. The refresh may be conditional depending on the outcome of the comparison. The conditional refresh is: an automatic replacement of at least one of the objects of the target object specification with a corresponding object of the source object specification, an automatic asynchronous notification that a more current or suitable object exists and option for automatic refresh therefrom, or an automatic replacement of at least one of the objects of the target object specification with a corresponding object of likely better stability. The source object specification and target object specification may be specified with wildcards, map files, or environment variables. The source objects and target objects may be located locally, or remotely, to the data processing system that accesses the objects.