Title: Method for providing stand-in objects
Patent application publication number: 20070039008
Publication date: Februsary 15, 2007
Filing date: July 31, 2006 (priority to December 7, 1994)
Link to PDF: 
(17 pages)
AIPW Summary: A method for using stand-in objects to resolve relationships in an object oriented environment. When a first piece of data is fetched in an object oriented relational database (for example), data related to the first piece of data is also fetched, which wastes processing time to resolve all the relationships. This invention delays instantiation of the related data by using stand-in objects. The stand-in objects belong to a “fault” class and are transformed into the actual data the first time the object is accessed. The stand-in object can exist for as long as it can handle messages sent to it. Once the stand-in object receives a message it can’t handle, the actual data is fetched. A list of messages that the stand-in object can handle is described in paragraphs 0049-0062. This application is a bit odd in that it only has one claim; though since it is application #6 in this family, that it understandable.