Multi-language domain name service

(54) MULTI-LANGUAGE DOMAIN NAME
SERVICE

(75) Inventors: Tin-Wee Tan, Singapore (SG); Ching
Hong Seng, Johor (MY); Juay Kwang
Tan, Singapore (SG); Kok Yong
Leong, Singapore (SG); Don Irwin
Tracy De Silva, Singapore (SG); Kuan
Siong Lim, Singapore (SG); Edward S.
Tay, Singapore (SG); Subramanian
Subbiah, Menlo Park, CA (US)

(73) Assignee: i-DNS.net International Pte Ltd,

Singapore (SG)

( * ) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term ol this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) by 0 days.

(21) Appl. No.: 09/258,690

(22) Filed: Feb. 26, 1999

(51) Int. CI.7 G06F 15/16; G06F 15/173

(52) U.S. CI 709/245; 709/223; 709/225;

709/227; 709/228; 709/238; 704/8; 704/9;

707/10; 707/100; 707/542

(58) Field of Search 709/227, 228,

709/238, 245, 225, 223; 704/8, 9; 707/10, 100, 542; 345/467, 469; 370/351, 352, 353, 354, 475

(56) References Cited

U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS

5,784,069 * 7/1998 Daniels et al 345/467

5.784,071 * 7/1998 Tang et al 345/467

5,793,381 8/1998 Edberg et al. .

6,104,711 * 8/2000 Voit 370/352

6,108,703 * 8/2000 Leighton et al 709/226

6,131,095 * 10/2000 Low et al 707/10

6.161,008 * 12/2000 Lee et al 455/414

6,182,119 * 1/2001 Chu 709/206

6,182,148 1/2001 Tout .

FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS

99/19814 4/1999 (WO) G06F/17/28

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Product Description ol NeoCor Tech's text translation software. As early as May 31, 1996.

The Unicode Standard, A Technical Introduction, Jun. 1998.

James Seng, International DNS (iDNS), Presentation view graphs made in Japan, Hong Kong, and China as early as Jan. 5, 1999.

Juay-Kwang Tan, et al. "iDNS, an Experiment DNS System with Unicode Support" National University ol Singapore, prior to Jan. 22, 1999. (www.i-dns.com/intro.html).

M. Duerst, "Internationalization ol Domain Names", Keio University, Jul. 1998. (www.i-dns.com/technical/ draft-duerst-dns-il8n-02.txt).

* cited by examiner

Primary Examiner—Zarni Maung
Assistant Examiner—Saleh Najjar

(74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Beyer Weaver & Thomas, LLP

(57) ABSTRACT

A multilingual Domain Name System allows users to use Domain Names in non-Unicode or ASCII encodings. An international DNS server (or iDNS server) receives multilingual DNS requests and converts them to a format that can be used in the conventional Domain Name System. When the iDNS server first receives a DNS request, it determines the encoding type ol that request. It may do this by considering the bit string in the top-level domain (or other portion) ol the Domain Name and matching that string against a list ol known bit strings lor known top-level domains ol various encoding types. One entry in the list may be the bit string lor ".com" in Chinese BIG5, lor example. Alter the iDNS server identifies the encoding type ol the Domain Name, it converts the encoding ol the Domain Name to Unicode. It then translates the Unicode representation to an ASCII representation conforming to the universal DNS standard. This is then passed into a conventional Domain Name System, which recognizes the ASCII format Domain Name and returns the associated IP address.

16 Claims, 8 Drawing Sheets