US Patent 7685168 Removing web application flicker using AJAX and page templates

A web page is rendered under the control of a client. A content server divides a webpage in multiple empty partitions. Each of the partitions has an associated pointer to data that can populate the partition. When data changes, the content server transmits pointers for all data for all of the partitions, including new pointers to new changed data. If an old pointer to old data is the same as a new pointer to the new data, the client ignores the new pointer. If the new pointer and the old pointer are different, then the client uses the new pointer to obtain the new data for that particular partition.