Query language

• US 20070198480A1
• Filed: 02/17/2006
• Published: 08/23/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Hogue, Andrew, Rohde, Douglas
• Granted Patent: US 8,954,426 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/80 of semi-structured data, e.g. markup language structured data such as SGML, XML or HTML content-based retrieval of web data G06F16/95

Abstract

A fact repository supports searches of facts relevant to search queries comprising keywords and phrases. A service engine retrieves the objects that are associated with facts relevant to a query. The query language described is designed for use with such a repository of facts and searches both the attributes of facts and the values of the attributes.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of searching a fact repository comprising a plurality of facts associated with objects, the method comprising:

receiving a search query;

reviewing at least one of an attribute and a value in the plurality of facts in the fact repository to determine which of the plurality of facts are relevant to the search query, each of the plurality of facts including an attribute and a value; and

returning objects. whose facts are relevant to the search query.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein reviewing further comprises reviewing additional fields in the plurality of facts to determine which of the plurality of facts are relevant to the search query.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein returning further comprises:

returning an object having a fact that contains a term of the search query in an attribute of the fact, where the search query specifies that the term must be contained in an attribute.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein returning further comprises:

returning an object having a fact that contains a term of the search query in a value of the fact, where the search query specifies that the term must be contained in a value.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein returning further comprises:

returning an object whose facts contain a first term of the search query in a first fact and a second term of the search query in a second fact.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein returning further comprises:

returning an object having a fact that contains both a first term of the search query and a second term of the search query, where the search query specifies that the first and second terms must be in the same fact.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein returning further comprises:

returning an object whose facts contain a first term of the search query in a first fact and a second term of the search query in the second fact, where the search query specifies that the query terms should be in different facts.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein returning further comprises:

returning an object whose facts contain a first term of the search query as an attribute name of a first fact and a second term of the search query as an value of the first fact, where the search query specifies that the first and second query terms must be an attribute/value pair in the same fact.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the search query further comprises receiving the search query from a web-based search engine.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the search query further comprises receiving the search query as part of an http request.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein reviewing the plurality of facts to determine which are relevant to the search query further comprises determining which attributes and values in the plurality of facts match terms of the search query.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein returning objects whose facts are relevant to the search query further comprises determining which objects to return in accordance with logical operators in the search query.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising ranking returned objects by relevance and displaying portions of at least two of the returned objects in accordance with their rankings.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein a search query of the format:

[A B]

requires that terms A and B are in the same fact.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein a search query of the format:

[A;

B]

requires that terms A and B, respectively, match an attribute and value pair of a fact.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising further searching the returned objects, to further refine search results.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising reviewing a source value in the plurality of facts in the fact repository to determine which of the plurality of facts are relevant to the search query, each of the plurality of facts including an attribute, a value, and a source value.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising reviewing additional values in a fact of the plurality of facts in the fact repository to determine which of the plurality of facts are relevant to the search query, each of the plurality of facts including an attribute, a value, and the additional value.

16. A user interface for a client device, for searching a fact repository comprising a plurality of facts associated with objects, the fact repository coupled to a service engine adapted to search the fact repository in response to a search query, the user interface implemented on the client device by computer executable code and data, comprising:

a search query field for receiving a search query;

a search results page, adapted for display on the client device in response to the search query provided by the client device to the search engine, for displaying objects whose facts are relevant to the search query, where determining whether facts of an object are relevant to the search query comprises looking at the attributes and values of the facts.

17. A system to allow a user to search a fact repository having a plurality of facts associated with objects, comprising:

a query receiver;

a fact reviewer for reviewing attributes and values in the plurality of facts in the fact repository to determine which of the plurality of facts are relevant to the search query; and

a result displayer for returning objects whose facts are relevant to the search query.

21. A computer implemented method of searching a semi-structured fact repository comprising a plurality of facts associated with objects, the method comprising:

receiving a search query;

reviewing at least one of an attribute and a value in the plurality of facts in the semi-structured fact repository to determine which of the plurality of facts are relevant to the search query; and

returning objects whose facts are relevant to the search query.

22. A computer implemented method of searching a fact repository comprising a plurality of facts associated with objects, the method comprising:

receiving a search query;

reviewing at least one of an attribute and a value in the plurality of facts in the fact repository to determine which of the plurality of facts are relevant to the search query, each of the plurality of facts including an attribute and a value; and

returning facts that are relevant to the search query.