Method for cataloging, filtering, and relevance ranking frame-based hierarchical information structures

• US 6,334,131 B2
• Filed: 08/29/1998
• Issued: 12/25/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ravikumar, Shanmugasundaram, Tomkins, Andrew, Dom, Byron Edward, Chakrabarti, Soumen, Rajagopalan, Sridhar, Raghavan, Prabhakar, Gibson, David Andrew
• Primary Examiner(s): Black, Thomas
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mizrahi, Diane D.
• Application Number:
  US09/143,733
• Publication Number:
  US 20010039544A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,214 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/3, 707/4, 707/5, 707/10, 707/100, 707/102, 707/104, 707/500, 707/501, 707/513, 707/514, 345/348, 709/218
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A method for cataloging, filtering and ranking information, as for example, World Wide Web pages of the Internet. The method is preferably implemented in computer software and features steps for enabling a user to interactively create an information database including preferred information elements such as preferred-authority World Wide Web pages. The method includes steps for enabling a user to interactively create a frame-based, hierarchical organizational structure for the information elements, and steps for identifying and automatically filtering and ranking by relevance, information elements, such as World Wide Web pages for populating the structure, to form, for example, a searchable, World Wide Web page database. Additionally, the method features steps for enabling a user to interactively define a frame-based, hierarchical information structure for cataloging information, identifying a preliminary population of information elements for a particular hierarchical category arranged as a frame, based upon the respective frame attributes, and thereafter, expanding the information population to include related information, and subsequently, automatically filtering and ranking the information based upon relevance, and then populating the hierarchical structure with a definable portion of the filtered, ranked information elements.

Claims

1. A method comprising the steps of:

enabling a user to interactively define a frame-based, hierarchical information structure for cataloging information;

identifying a preliminary population of information elements for a particular hierarchical category arranged as a frame, based upon the respective frame attributes;

expanding the information population to include related information;

automatically filtering and ranking the information based upon relevance; and

populating the hierarchical structure with a definable portion of the information.