WebFeat Granted Chinese Patent

Chinese patent marks fourth WebFeat patent for session management and authentication technology

Old Brookville, NY, January. 14 , 2008—WebFeat®, the world’s leading federated search engine, has been granted Chinese patent #01811840.2 for its "Method and System for Retrieving Search Results from Multiple Disparate Databases.” The patent marks the fourth patent to-date for WebFeat for its authentication and session management technology. WebFeat also holds U.S. patent #6,807,539, German patent # DE20121706U, and Australian patent #WO0182117.

WebFeat’s four patents regard its proprietary technology that enable its translators to transparently perform the authentication and session management functions necessary to execute search queries and preserve native sessions in order to display full records associated with each database citation, regardless of where the application is hosted, or whether the user is within the library or accessing the system remotely. WebFeat’s session management technology further enables WebFeat to interact seamlessly with the native application on behalf of the user. Transparent authentication and session management for commercial databases is the single most daunting technology challenge associated with federated search.

WebFeat’s session management and authentication technology affords its client libraries an extraordinary degree of database compatibility as compared with other federated search solutions. WebFeat supports over 9,000 commercial databases. Other WebFeat patents pending include its proxy technology, enabling the display of native full records for commercial databases.

“Over its ten years of existence, WebFeat has established a long track record of technology “firsts” beginning with the first successful federated search engine,” said Todd Miller, President of WebFeat. “Our clients can rely upon WebFeat to continue this tradition of innovation in search technology.”

About WebFeat
WebFeat® (U.S. patent #6,807,539, German patent # DE20121706U, Australian patent #WO0182117, Chinese patent #01811840.2) is the developer of the WebFeat and WebFeat Express™ Search Solutions, used by over 16,500 leading public, academic, government and Global 1000 libraries and information centers—including over a third of the largest 100 U.S. public libraries, 17 statewide library systems, and 2 out of every 10 Association of Research Libraries (ARL) institutions.

WebFeat offers next-generation federated search and e-resource management tools to meet the needs of any library. Products include: the WebFeat Express federated search solution, WebFeat Enterprise Edition for multi-library networks, WebFeat Custom API and SMART™, WebFeat’s usage tracker. WebFeat Menu Manager™ and WebFeat Proxy™ provide tools for access and management of e-resource collections. WebFeat has earned industry recognition from leading organizations such as Library Journal and the Gartner Group. Learn more about WebFeat at www.webfeat.org.