System and method for searching and retrieving related messages

• US 20050144157A1
• Filed: 12/29/2003
• Published: 06/30/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Rohall, Steven L., Gruen, Daniel M., Moody, Paul B., Kerr, Bernard J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,412,437 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/10 File systems; File servers
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A system and method is provided which utilizes a threading service to offer enhanced features for a document management system including an email system. Various enhanced email features may be provided through one or more of the following components: a delete module, a reply module, a profile module, and a search module. The delete module enables a user to delete a selected message, a set of related messages, or the whole set except for the selected message. The reply module enables a user to send a reply message to all addresses associated and involved with an entire set of related messages. The profile module enables a dynamic interest profile to contain all relevant information from an outgoing message and a set of messages related to the outgoing message. The search module enables search results to include documents which match the user'"'"'s query as well as documents related to the documents which match the user'"'"'s query.

Claims

1. A method for searching a plurality of documents for search terms, the method comprising:

receiving one or more search terms from a user;

determining at least one result document from the plurality of documents, wherein the result document includes the one or more search terms;

determining one or more related documents that are related to the at least one result document; and

presenting the at least one result document and at least indicia of the one or more related documents to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said presenting the at least one result document and at least indicia of the one or more related documents to the user comprises presenting the at least one result document and the one or more related documents to the user.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said presenting the at least one result document and the one or more related documents to the user comprises for each respective document presenting an indication to the user whether the respective document includes the one or more search terms.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein said presenting the at least one result document and the one or more related documents to the user comprises for each respective document presenting an indication to the user whether the respective document is related to a document that includes the one or more search terms.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said presenting the at least one result document and at least indicia of the one or more related documents to the user comprises presenting the user with a selectable indicia associated with each at least one result document, and further comprising

in response to the user selecting the selectable indicia, presenting the one or more related documents to the user.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the documents comprise email messages.

6. A method for searching a plurality of documents for search terms, the method comprising:

receiving one or more search terms from a user;

determining at least one result document from the plurality of documents, wherein the result document includes the one or more search terms;

determining one or more related documents that are related to the at least one result document; and

presenting one of the one or more documents related to the at least one result document to the user.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein said presenting comprises presenting an initial one of the one or more documents related to the at least one result document to the user.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising presenting an indication to the user whether said initial one document includes the one or more search terms.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising expanding said initial one document to a set of documents related to the result document.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising presenting, for each document in the set of documents, an indication whether the document includes the one or more search terms.

12. A system for searching for one or more search terms in a plurality of documents comprising:

a graphical user interface that receives the one or more search terms from a user, presents one or more search options to the user, and presents search results to the user, wherein the graphical user interface includes one or more views; and

a search module, responsive to the selected search option and the one or more search terms, that determines the search results, wherein the search results include at least one result document that includes the search terms and at least indicia of one or more documents related to the at least one result document

13. The method of claim 12, wherein said search results comprise the at least one result document and the one or more related documents.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein said search results further comprise an indication for each respective document whether the respective document includes the one or more search terms.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein said search results further comprise as indication for each respective document whether the respective document is related to a document that includes the one or more search terms.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein said search results further comprise a selectable indicia associated with each at least one result document that, when selected by the user, causes said graphical user interface to present the one or more related documents to the user.