Software agent for comparing locally accessible keywords with meta-information and having pointers associated with distributed information

摘要

PCT No. PCT/GB96/00132 Sec. 371 Date Jul. 22, 1997 Sec. 102(e) Date Jul. 22, 1997 PCT Filed Jan. 23, 1996 PCT Pub. No. WO96/23265 PCT Pub. Date Aug. 1, 1996A system for accessing information stored in a distributed information database provides a community of intelligent software agents. Each agent can be built as an extension of a known viewer for a distributed information system such as the Internet WorldWide Web. The agent is effectively integrated with the viewer and can extract pages by means of the viewer for storage in an intelligent page store. The text from the information system is abstracted and is stored with additional information, optionally selected by the user. The agent-based access system uses keyword sets to locate information of interest to a user, together with user profiles such that pages being stored by one user can be notified to another whose profile indicates potential interest. The keyword sets can be extended by use of a thesaurus.