CONTEXT GENERATION FROM ACTIVE VIEWING REGION FOR CONTEXT SENSITIVE SEARCHING

• US 20130159835A1
• Filed: 12/15/2011
• Published: 06/20/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/15/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Khalil, Manah Mounir, Reddy, Padala Anil Kumar, Nagpal, Abhishek
• Granted Patent: US 9,292,504 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2428 Query predicate definition using graphical user interfaces, including menus and forms G06F16/2423 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3322 using system suggestions G06F16/3325 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

A device retrieves content and renders a user-selected portion of the retrieved content in a browser as an active content viewing region. The device scans the active content viewing region to generate a scan, and generates context from the scan of the active content viewing region. A corpus of documents is searched based on the generated context.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

retrieving content;

rendering a user-selected portion of the retrieved content in a browser as an active content viewing region;

scanning the active content viewing region to generate a scan;

generating context from the scan of the active content viewing region; and

searching a corpus of documents based on the generated context.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the corpus of documents comprises a set of advertisements.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the corpus of documents comprises a corpus of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) documents.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein retrieving the content comprises:

receiving, at the browser, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) associated with a document; and

retrieving, using the browser, the document from a server using the URL.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the context from the scan comprises:

extracting a sequence of text from within the scan to generate the context.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein searching the corpus of content comprises:

matching content from the corpus of documents with the generated context.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein matching the content from the corpus of documents with the generated context comprises:

identifying a sequence of text within the scan to generate the context; and

matching at least a portion of the sequence of text with text contained within the content of the corpus of documents.

8. A network device, comprising:

a communication interface configured to communicate with a browser executed by another device; and

a processing unit configured to;

identify content accessed by the browser,

identify a portion of the content viewed by a user in the browser, wherein the portion comprises less than an entirety of the content,

determine a number of times the portion of the content has been viewed by the user and other users, and

determine an amount of time that the user viewed the portion of the content in the browser.

9. The network device of claim 8, wherein the communication interface is further configured to receive context obtained from a scan of the portion of the content viewed by the user in the browser, and

wherein, when identifying the portion of the content, the processing unit is further configured to store the received context as the identifier for the portion of the content.

10. The network device of claim 8, wherein the identified content comprises a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) document.

11. The network device of claim 8, wherein the processing unit is further configured to determine an average amount of time that multiple users have viewed the portion of the content in respective browsers, including the amount of time that the user viewed the portion of the content in the browser.

12. A method, comprising:

obtaining content;

identifying a portion of the content, wherein the portion comprises less than an entirety of the content;

generating context from the identified portion of the content; and

using the generated context for obtaining relevant search results.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein identifying the portion of the content comprises:

scanning a region of the content displayed in a window of a browser.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein generating the context from the identified portion of the content comprises:

generating the context based on the scan of the region of the content displayed in the browser window.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the region of the content displayed in the browser window is selected by a user of the browser via controls associated with the browser.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the content comprises a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) document.

17. A device, comprising:

a communication interface configured to obtain content from a content hosting server; and

a processing unit configured to execute a browser and to;

identify a portion of the content displayed in a window of the browser, wherein the portion comprises less than an entirety of the content, and

generate context from the identified portion of the content,

wherein the communication interface is further configured to send the generated context to a search engine to perform a search of a corpus of documents to obtain search results relevant to the generated context.

18. The device of claim 17, wherein, when identifying the portion of the content, the processing unit is configured to:

scan a region of the content displayed in a window of a browser.

19. The device of claim 18, wherein, when generating the context from the identified portion of the content, the processing unit is further configured to:

generate the context based on the scan of the region of the content displayed in the browser window.

20. The device of claim 18, wherein the region of the content displayed in the browser window is selected by a user of the browser.

21. The device of claim 17, wherein the content comprises a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) document.