Two patents embody the intellectual property behind the CubicEye™ web viewer. The viewer itself is an application of these underlying patented technologies, which go far beyond the current implementation.
In discussing these patents however, it is useful to refer to the CubicEye™ to demonstrate these technologies, even though it is only one possible implementation of these ideas, and a somewhat limited one at that.
Patent document 6,922,815, dated July 26, 2005 includes these claims.
From the abstract:
"The invention is a computer-
implemented method and apparatus for organizing Web pages and other computer files relative to each other in a manner analogous to a three or four dimensional spatial relationship and displaying multiple Web pages simultaneously in multiple panels of a computer monitor in accordance with said spatial organization..."
These claims, then, relate to how to organize and display numerous web pages on a computer display simultaneously.
Quite distinct from typical framed, gridded, thumbnailed, tabbed, or other methods of representing multiple pages, these concepts allow entire pages to be displayed, and the relationship between these pages maded apparent on the display at the same time.
In the illustrations to the right, each of the six web pages (five showing) has been expanded (each flat panel replaced with a cube) to show additional pages linked to the original page. Since each new cube contains five pages, twenty five pages are currently visible. This expansion process can be repeated ad infinitum.
Five web pages displayed in the screen.
Twenty-five web pages displayed on the screen.
Patent document 6,922,815, dated July 26, 2005 includes these claims.
From the abstract:
"...whereby despite the organization, at least on of the Web pages or files can be made to stay in the same panel of the display while the user navigates through the virtual multi-dimensional space."
This claim describes a special relationship between certain web pages and files to the display. Specifically, it states that "despite the organization", that is to say the relationship between the pages in the cube that would otherwise exist, at least one page can be assigned a permanent relationship to some specific portion of the geometry of the display.
In the examples shown here, this "Always-There" page is implemented as a virtual shopping cart that always stays at the bottom of the cube, no matter what site is being browsed.
As different shopping sites are visited, thier contents are displayed on the remaining available sides of the cube, as well as additional cubes that might be expanded from these, allowing the virtual shopping cart, shown here shaded green, to remain on screen at all times.
With appropriate back-end e-commerce technogies in place (such as PayPal or other electronic wallet providers), this would allow the user to make all of their purchases through the same interface, dragging and dropping, for example, thier purchase to the bottom of the cube, where a running total of purchases could be accumulated.
It is important to note that this functionality is distinct and separate from the overall nature of the display, which could be any technology that allows the display of at least two web pages simultaneously.
An Always-There shopping cart at the bottom of the display.
Patent document 6,938,218, dated July 26, 2005 includes these claims.
From the abstract:
"A method and apparatus for geometrically organizing, interfacing to, surfing, authoring, converting, and viewing computer files such as pages on the World Wide Web or operator interface windows of application software."
These claims address the issue of navigating the web in a geometrically heirachical system of web pages or files, as opposed to the simple tree structure typical of most common navigation systems.
The top figure illustrates the path that a user might take when comparing shirts at different web sites. He has visited three stores, A, B, and C, and has found shirts at all three. The diagram on the left shows his actual browsing history. However, when he attempts to return to one of the stores by pressing "back" on his browser, he jumps to the main page of store B and then straight to store A. The only way to find the shirts in stores A or B is to click all of the links that took him there in the first place, and when he does so, he loses the history inside store C. This is because there is only one valid branch of history available - taking a different branch deletes the previous one.
Navigation within a spatially-aware systems such as CubicEye preserves this history. In fact, it is visible on the screen. You can see the shirts in Store A from store C, and jump right to them.
The lower diagram is a simplified representation of how this works (showing four directions of travel rather than six for clarity - the concept remains the same), with green showing the browsing history, and red showing potential jumps from one page to another, to another, and so on.
Conventional navigation using the browser's 'back' and 'forward' arrows loses the trail after a few wrong turns. The sites previously visited are orphaned (gray squares) when a different branch is taken.
A spatially-aware navigation system allows direct jumps from one cube to another, retaining the browsing history. This is due to both a system of heirchical cube structures that store the history and a scheme that allows for the display of numerous websites simultaneously.