Importance

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Abstract

The invention provides a method and system for reducing latency in reviewing and presenting web documents to the user. A cache coupled to one or more web clients request web documents from web servers on behalf of those web clients and communicates those web documents to the web clients for display. The cache parses the web documents as they are received from the web server, identifies references to any embedded objects, and determines if those embedded objects are already maintained in the cache. If those embedded objects are not in the cache, the cache automatically pre-fetches those embedded objects from the web server without need for a command from the web client. The cache maintains a two-level memory including primary memory and secondary mass storage. At the time the web document is received, the cache determines if any embedded objects are maintained in the cache but are not in primary memory. If those embedded objects are not in primary memory, the cache automatically pre-loads those embedded objects from secondary mass storage to primary memory without need for a request from the web client. Web documents maintained in the cache are periodically refreshed, so as to assure those web documents are not stale. The invention is applied both to original requests to communicate web documents and their embedded objects from the web server to the web client, and to refresh requests to communicate web documents and their embedded objects from the web server to the cache.

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First Claim