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:
Apr. 18, 2000
Filed:
Apr. 29, 1999
Kenneth Charles Knowlton, Merrimack, NH (US);
Gary Steven Miliefsky, Tyngsborough, MA (US);
QuickBut, Inc., Acton, MA (US);
Abstract
A visual link mechanism residing in a local system for identifying addresses of locations in the plurality of remote systems wherein the local system is connected through a network to the plurality of remote systems. The visual link mechanism includes a visual link library and a network access mechanism responsive to a visual link including a displayable graphic icon for accessing the location represented by a selected graphic icon. Various structures of visual links are described, each being an entity existing independently of the system environment in which it resides, and the network access mechanism includes a layout table for storing a plurality of plans for arranging and displaying a plurality of visual link graphic icons in a display, a visual links organizer, a visual link screen saver, and a hash protection mechanism for detecting the unauthorized construction or modification of visual links or other forms of files. Also described is a visual link capture engine for extracting graphics information from a data file and generating a corresponding graphic icon and a display layout generator for generating display layouts of sets of predetermined numbers of displayable visual objects.