Patent issued for Web caching

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat net>
Date: October 20, 2006 2:55:14 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: Patent issued for Web caching

Dave:

For IP, if you'd like. A patent has recently issued which appears to  
cover any and all forms of caching in a client/server system --  
including the World Wide Web.The principal claim is for

"1. A method, including steps of: receiving a set of network objects  
in response to a first request to a server from a client; and  
maintaining said network objects in a cache memory in a cache engine,  
said cache engine connected via a network to the server and the  
client, said cache memory including mass storage; wherein said step  
of maintaining includes steps of recording said network objects in  
said cache memory and retrieving said network objects from said cache  
memory, so as to substantially minimizes a time required for  
retrieving said network objects from said mass storage".

In short, the patent is broad enough to cover virtually any form of  
caching in a client/server situation. The link to the patent at the  
USPTO is quite long, so I've run it through TinyURL.com for the  
convenience of IP readers. The patent is at

http://tinyurl.com/ym7xq8

Note that the patent issued in September of this year, but was  
applied for in 1998. This was long after the CERN HTTP cache, the  
DARPA-funded "Harvest project," the NLANR Information Resource  
Caching project (IRCache), the release of the first version of Squid,  
and the release of the Cisco Cache Engine, so there appears to be  
ample prior art. One can only wonder how this patent possibly could  
have issued.

--Brett Glass, LARIAT.NET

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