SEARCH SYSTEMS AND METHODS WITH INTEGRATION OF USER ANNOTATIONS

• US 20110213805A1
• Filed: 05/10/2011
• Published: 09/01/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lee, Kevin, Walther, Eckart, Lu, Qi, Diab, Ali, Ku, David, Tam, Chung-Man
• Granted Patent: US 9,489,463 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/780
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/338 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/8365 Query optimisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

Computer systems and methods allow users to annotate content items found in a corpus such as the World Wide Web. Annotations, which can include any descriptive and/or evaluative metadata related to a document, are collected from a user and stored in association with that user. Users are able to annotate and view their annotations for any document they encounter while interacting with the corpus, including hits returned in a search of the corpus. Users are also able to search their annotations or to limit searches to documents they have annotated. Metadata from annotations can also be aggregated across users and aggregated metadata applied in generating search results.

Claims

1-41. -41. (canceled)

42. A computerized method for responding to a user query, the method comprising:

receiving a query submitted by a user;

generating a search report including a listing of one or more hits, wherein each hit is a document from a corpus that is determined to be relevant to the query;

transmitting the search report to the user, wherein for each hit that is not an annotated hit, providing a control element selectable by the user to create a new annotation associated with the hit;

receiving one or more annotations related to the one or more hits from the user, wherein the one or more annotations include one or more user-entered keywords describing the one or more hits;

adding to a data store the one or more annotations relating to the one or more hits provided by the user;

electronically accessing, via the processing device, the data store of annotations created by the user, each annotation being associated with at least one document in the corpus;

electronically identifying, via the processing device, as an annotated hit, each of the hits that is associated with a matching one of the annotations;

determining an inferred rating for each hit that is not an annotated hit on the basis of a rating of the one or more annotated hits and a similarity between a hit that is not an annotated hit and one or more annotated hits and;

in response to receiving the one or more annotations, automatically regenerating the search report to update the search report, the search report comprising the listing of the one or more hits ranked accordingly to the inferred rating for the hits that are not annotated hits and the rating of the annotated hits for the annotated hits, the search report further indicating, for each hit, whether the hit is an annotated hit.

43. The method of claim 42 wherein the search report includes a visual highlight element applied to each hit that is an annotated hit.

44. The method of claim 43 wherein user-specific metadata is included in the annotations, the user-specific metadata including a rating and wherein the visual highlight element applied to each annotated hit depends on the rating included in the matching annotation.

45. The method of claim 44 wherein generating the search report further includes:

for each annotated hit, providing in the search report a control element operable by the user to request a display of the user-specific metadata of the matching annotation.

46. The method of claim 44 wherein generating the search report further includes:

for each annotated hit, incorporating into the listing of the hits at least some of the user-specific metadata from the matching annotation.

47. The method of claim 44 wherein generating the search report further includes:

generating a separate listing including only annotated hits.

48. The method of claim 47 wherein the user-specific metadata included in each annotation includes a rating of one of the plurality of documents belonging to the corpus and wherein the separate listing includes only annotated hits for which the matching annotation includes a favorable rating.

49. The method of claim 44 wherein the user-specific metadata included in each annotation includes a rating of one of the plurality of documents belonging to the corpus and wherein generating the search report includes determining an order for the listing of the hits based at least in part on the ratings of the annotated hits.

50. The method of claim 49 wherein generating the search report further includes eliminating an annotated hit from the listing of the hits in the event that the rating is an unfavorable rating.

51. The method of claim 44 wherein the user-specific metadata includes an item of information explicitly input by the user.

52. The method of claim 51 wherein the item of information is a rating of one of the plurality of documents belonging to the corpus.

53. The method of claim 51 wherein the item of information is a keyword describing one of the plurality of documents belonging to the corpus.

54. The method of claim 51 wherein the item of information is a label selected from a predefined vocabulary.

55. The method of claim 51 wherein the item of information is a free-text description of one of the plurality of documents belonging to the corpus.

56. The method of claim 42 wherein the corpus includes a plurality of World Wide Web pages.

57. The method of claim 42 further comprising:

searching the data store of annotations to identify one or more additional annotated hits, wherein each additional annotated hit corresponds to a document from the corpus for which the associated annotation includes user-specific metadata that is determined to be relevant to the query; and

incorporating the additional annotated hits into the listing of the hits in the search report.

58. The method of claim 57 wherein searching the corpus includes:

extracting a search term from the user query; and

identifying as a hit each document in the corpus that contains the search term.

59. The method of claim 58 wherein searching the data store of annotations

includes identifying as an additional annotated hit each document in the corpus having user-specific metadata including the search term.

60. The method of claim 42 wherein the library of annotations further includes

at least one annotation that is associated with a group of documents in the corpus and wherein any hit that is one of the group of documents is identified as an annotated hit.

61. A computer system for responding to user queries, the system comprising:

an index data store configured to store a searchable representation of a plurality of documents from a corpus;

a personalization data store configured to store a library of annotations created by users, each annotation being associated with at least one of the documents in the corpus;

an annotation module, executed by a processing device, communicably coupled to the personalization data store, the annotation module including;

input control logic configured to receive metadata from the user and to associate the received metadata with one of the plurality of documents from the corpus;

storage control logic configured to store the received metadata in the personalization store as an annotation associated with one of the plurality of documents from the corpus; and

a search server communicably coupled to the index data store and the personalization data store, the search server including;

search control logic configured to, using the processing device, search the index data store to identify one or more hits, wherein each hit is a document from the corpus that is determined to be relevant to the received query;

reporting control logic configured to generate a search report including a listing of the hits, the search report further indicating, for each hit, whether the hit is an annotated hit;

the annotation module further including input control logic configured to, for each hit that is not an annotated hit, provide a control element selectable by the user to create a new annotation associated with the hit and receiving the new annotation from the user, wherein the new annotation includes one or more user-entered keywords describing the hit, the storage control logic configured to add the new annotation to the library of annotations;

the personalization control logic configured to determine an inferred rating for each hit that is not an annotated hit on the basis of a rating of the one or more annotated hits and a similarity between a hit that is not an annotated hit and one or more annotated hits and;

the search control logic and reporting control logic of the search server configured to, in response to receiving the new annotation, automatically regenerate the search report to update the search report to further indicate that the newly annotated hit is an annotated hit, the search report comprising the listing of the hits ranked accordingly to the inferred rating for the hits that are not an annotated hits and the rating of the annotated hits for the annotated hits.