Subject: Re: development track for "where-it-says" [patented?]

From: Dan Connolly <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 14:36:35 -0600

Al Gilman wrote:
> 
> To do a little forward thinking, and follow up on what Larry Masinter said:
> 
> > The "#fragment" notation is only used for named components.
> >
> 
> Makes a lot of sense to me.
> 
> My initial stab at syntax for "where-it-says" was a
> searchpart along the lines of ...?find="string-to-match" .

Would you please research the www-talk archives or whatever
to find the earliest dicussion of this technique that you can
find? I have recently
been informed that there is a patent application[1] out
on this idea. I'm appalled that Nielsen would claim
credit for this idea, which has been kicked around on
public mailing lists for years.

Yikes! Issued Aug 19 1997?

[1] 659729 : Method and system for
implementing hypertext scroll attributes 
INVENTORS: Nielsen; Jakob, Atherton, CA
ASSIGNEES: Sun Microsystems, Inc., Mountain View, CA
ISSUED: Aug. 19, 1997
FILED: Feb. 1 , 1996
http://patent.womplex.ibm.com/details?patent_number=5659729

-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C Architecture Domain Lead
http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
phone://1/512/310-2971

---

From: Al Gilman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 14:54:04 -0500 (EST)

What I have learned from this discussion is that I need to start
with the HTML community.

If I can interest HTMLx development in exporting a reliable (i.e.
consistent across browsers) string-matching search/location
method for HTML, I hope that the URL specs won't have narrowed to
the point where there is no reasonable syntax by which to ask for
it.  

I believe that the XML project is already working on
intra-document locators in XLL although I am not sure that they
provide any sort of a pattern match yet.

-- Al Gilman

PS: I know that searchparts are presently server-side functions
but I don't immediately see that extending them to be sometimes
done client-side poses any real conflict.