DOCUMENTS SEARCHING ON PEER-TO-PEER COMPUTER SYSTEMS

• US 20080183680A1
• Filed: 01/30/2008
• Published: 07/31/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Charles Marshall, Laurent Meynier
• Original Assignee: Charles Marshall, Laurent Meynier
• Inventors: Marshall, Charles, Meynier, Laurent
• Application Number:
  US12/023,017
• Publication Number:
  US 20080183680A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/14 Details of searching files based on file metadata

Abstract

A viral application program for peer-to-peer networking, includes a self-installable application program for emailing or downloading over the Internet. Such includes processes to build an enrollment mechanism for including a plurality of user computers each with their own private document files, and interconnectable over a network. Also, a permissions list associated with each one of the plurality of user computers describes which other user computers have permission to access particular ones of the private document files. And, a mini-index of the private document files is maintained on a corresponding one of the user computers for returning relevant search results for its particular collection of permitted document files. Then, a search accumulator spanning all the mini-indexes can assemble a final search result of all user computers belonging to a particular group.

Claims

1. A peer-to-peer network for finding and sharing document files, comprising:

an enrollment mechanism for including a plurality of user computers each with their own private document files, and interconnectable over a network;

a permissions list associated with each one of said plurality of user computers that describes which other user computers have permission to access particular ones of said private document files;

a search engine host on each of the plurality of user computers and providing for a document file search of each document file then included on a corresponding local permission list;

a number of tags that can be independently named, placed, and associated by each user computer with each of said document files then included on a corresponding local permission list; and

a statistic associated with the usage behavior of each document file then included on a corresponding local permission list;

wherein, the search engine provides for search results that depend on a tag and a statistic.

2. The peer-to-peer network of claim 1, wherein:

the statistic comprises at least one of document file usage in deriving other document files, as an attachment to an email, a period of time since it was last accessed, a total number of times it has been accessed, and as a result in previous searches.

3. The peer-to-peer network of claim 1, further comprising:

no centralized index of all said private document files.

4. The peer-to-peer network of claim 1, further comprising:

a mini-index of said private document files as maintained on a corresponding one of said user computers for returning relevant search results for its particular collection of permitted document files; and

a search accumulator for spanning all the mini-indexes into a final search result of all user computers belonging to a particular group according to the permissions lists.

5. A search engine computer program for peer-to-peer networking and file sharing, comprising:

an enrollment mechanism for including a plurality of user computers each with their own private document files, and interconnectable over a network;

a permissions list associated with each one of said plurality of user computers that describes which other user computers have permission to access particular ones of said private document files;

a mini-index of said private document files as maintained on a corresponding one of said user computers for returning relevant search results for its particular collection of permitted document files; and

a search accumulator for spanning all the mini-indexes into a final search result of all user computers belonging to a particular group.

6. The program of claim 5, further comprising:

an automatic save . . save-as process for building and filling a local permissions list when a user creates any document file;

wherein, the declaration of who to share a document file with is intrinsic to the initial creation of such document file and not a discrete step that may not follow afterwards.

7. The program of claim 5, further comprising:

a self-installable application program for emailing or downloading over the Internet that has respective sub-programs for building the enrollment mechanism, permissions list, and mini-index, as a viral payload.

8. The program of claim 7, the self-installable application program further comprising respective sub-programs for building:

a mini-index of said private document files as maintained on a corresponding one of said user computers for returning relevant search results for its particular collection of permitted document files; and

a search accumulator for spanning all the mini-indexes into a final search result of all user computers belonging to a particular group according to the permissions lists.

9. A viral application program for peer-to-peer networking, comprising:

a self-installable application program for emailing or downloading over the Internet, and that includes processes to build;

an enrollment mechanism for including a plurality of user computers each with their own private document files, and interconnectable over a network;

a permissions list associated with each one of said plurality of user computers that describes which other user computers have permission to access particular ones of said private document files;

a mini-index of said private document files as maintained on a corresponding one of said user computers for returning relevant search results for its particular collection of permitted document files; and

a search accumulator for spanning all the mini-indexes into a final search result of all user computers belonging to a particular group.

10. A method for file searching, comprising:

accessing over a network a plurality of user computers each with their own private files;

obtaining permissions lists of document files a particular user computer is permitted to access by its local owner;

attaching a document file usage statistic to each document file a particular user computer is permitted to access;

attaching a custom tag to each document file a particular user computer is permitted to access;

computing a similarity index that describes how much of one document file repeats that of another; and

listing relevant document files an order that is dependent on said usage statistic, said custom tags, and said similarity index, and that was assembled from mini-indexes provided from user computers on said permissions lists.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

opening up a document file locally in response to a user'"'"'s clicking on a search result displayed on a local machine.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein, users are not required to name the document file names, nor identify which user computer it was saved.