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:
May. 04, 2004
Filed:
Feb. 09, 2001
Allen Webster Heath, Westlake, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method for reducing storage requirements in a database. The data to be encoded and stored in the database record is first analyzed to determine its characteristics. The data analyzed can be a sample of the records to enter and store or the entire data set. The analysis can be performed by a computer software module, or can be done manually, or by a combination of computer processing of the input stream of data and manual analysis to determine trends and characteristics. An encoding scheme is devised to encode the information input with a bit stream that represents the information. The information input is compacted to convert it into a uniform format. The encoded and compacted information are then stored in the corresponding database record. When a user wants to retrieve a particular record from the database, the compacted information is entered by the user, which in turn, is used as a key to retrieve the record. The encoded representation of the information input is retrieved with the record and is used to decode the compacted information into the original information input which is then displayed to the user. The original information input does not need to be stored in the database record as a result of this invention.