EXTENSIBLE SEARCH TERM SUGGESTION ENGINE

• US 20120124071A1
• Filed: 11/16/2010
• Published: 05/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/16/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gebhard, Derek S., Mishra, Manav, Averett, Edward Boyle, Fortier, Philip P., Vaidyanathan, Priya, Wautier, Marc, Elliott, Brendan D., Wood, David J. G., Aron, Andrei T., Elangovan, Vivekanandan, Leung, Kwong K., Gurunathan, Arun, Sanchez, Octavio Alfredo Cruz
• Granted Patent: US 8,515,984 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/767
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3322 using system suggestions G06F16/3325 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90324 using system suggestions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90332 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems

Abstract

A search term suggestion engine of a computing device receives characters of user data as the characters are input. The user data is at least part of a search term to be provided to one of multiple applications to search for the search term. An indication of multiple suggestion sources is received from the one application, and one or more suggested search terms are obtained, from the multiple suggestion sources, based on the received characters. One or more suggested search terms can also be obtained from the multiple suggestion sources based on one or more linguistic alternatives for the received characters. The one or more suggested search terms are combined into a combined set of suggested search terms, and the combined set of suggested search terms is returned to a search user interface for presentation to the user.

Claims

1. A method in a search term suggestion engine of a computing device, the method comprising:

receiving characters of user data as the characters are input, wherein the user data is at least part of a search term to be provided to a first application to search for the search term, wherein the first application is one of multiple applications on the computing device;

receiving, from the first application, an indication of multiple suggestion sources;

obtaining, from each of two or more of the multiple suggestion sources, one or more suggested search terms based on the received characters;

combining the one or more suggested search terms into a combined set of suggested search terms; and

returning the combined set of suggested search terms to a search user interface for presentation to a user.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising repeating the obtaining, combining, and returning as each of multiple additional characters of the user data input are received.

3. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein one of the multiple suggestion sources is a local file source that provides one or more suggested search terms based on files stored on a local storage device of the computing device.

4. A method as recited in claim 3, the local file source modifying the received characters to identify one or more suggested search terms, the modifying comprising swapping ones of the received characters, adding one or more characters to the received characters, or deleting one or more characters of the received characters.

5. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein one of the multiple suggestion sources is a per user search history source that provides one or more suggested search terms based on a history of search terms entered by the user of the computing device.

6. A method as recited in claim 5, wherein the per user search history source provides one or more suggested search terms based on a history of search terms entered by the user of the computing device to different ones of the multiple applications.

7. A method as recited in claim 5, the per user search history source modifying the received characters to identify one or more suggested search terms, the modifying comprising swapping ones of the received characters, adding one or more characters to the received characters, or deleting one or more characters of the received characters.

8. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein one of the multiple suggestion sources is the first application.

9. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the search user interface is included as a module of the first application.

10. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein combining the one or more suggested search terms comprises:

removing duplicate suggested search terms from the suggested search terms obtained from the two or more suggestion sources; and

ordering the suggested search terms in the combined set of suggested search terms based on the suggestion sources from which the suggested search terms are obtained.

11. A method as recited in claim 10, further comprising receiving, from the first application, an additional indication of which of the multiple suggestion sources are to have their suggested search terms be included earlier in the combined set of suggested search terms than which other of the multiple suggestion sources, the ordering comprising ordering the suggested search terms based on the additional indication.

12. A method as recited in claim 10, further comprising:

identifying, for each of the multiple suggestion sources, a number of suggested search terms to be included in the combined set of suggested search terms;

including in the combined set, for each of the multiple suggestion sources, the number of suggested search terms from the suggestion source if at least the number of suggested search terms is obtained from the suggestion source; and

including in the combined set, for each of the multiple suggestions sources, one or more suggested search terms from another suggestion source if at least the number of suggested search terms is not obtained from the suggestion source.

13. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the returning comprises:

returning first suggested search terms received from a first one or more of the multiple suggestion sources within a threshold amount of time;

waiting until second suggested search terms are received from a second one or more of the multiple suggestion sources; and

returning, after returning the first suggested search terms, the second suggested search terms to the search user interface.

14. A method as recited in claim 13, further comprising returning third suggested search terms received from a third one or more of the multiple suggestion sources within the threshold amount of time with the second suggested search terms if the third suggested search terms are to be included later in the combined list than the second suggested search terms.

15. One or more computer storage media having stored thereon multiple instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing device, cause the one or more processors to:

receive characters of user data as the characters are input, wherein the user data is at least part of a search term to be provided to an application to search for the search term;

determine one or more linguistic alternatives for the characters;

provide both the characters and the one or more linguistic alternatives to a suggestion source;

receive, from the suggestion source, one or more suggested search terms based on the one or more linguistic alternatives; and

return the one or more suggested search terms to a search user interface for display.

16. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 15, wherein the characters of user data comprise Latin alphabet letters, and the one or more linguistic alternatives include one or more East Asian language characters.

17. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 16, wherein to receive one or more suggested search terms is to receive one or more suggested search terms in Latin alphabet letters, and receive one or more suggested search terms in East Asian language characters.

18. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 15, wherein to determine one or more linguistic alternatives for the characters is to translate the characters into a different alphabet.

19. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 15, wherein to determine one or more linguistic alternatives for the characters is to identify one or more East Asian language characters represented by the characters.

20. A method in a search term suggestion engine of a computing device, the method comprising:

receiving, from a search user interface, characters of user data as the characters are input, wherein the user data is at least part of a search term to be provided to an application to search for the search term;

receiving, from the application, an indication of multiple suggestion sources, the multiple suggestion sources including a local file source that provides one or more suggested search terms based on files stored on a local storage device of the computing device, and a per user search history source that provides one or more suggested search terms based on a history of search terms entered by a user of the computing device;

determining one or more linguistic alternatives for the characters;

providing both the characters and the one or more linguistic alternatives to each of the multiple suggestion sources;

receiving, from each of the multiple suggestion sources, one or more suggested search terms based on the received characters and/or the one or more linguistic alternatives;

combining the one or more suggested search terms into a combined set of suggested search terms; and

returning the combined set of suggested search terms to the search user interface for display.