Methods and systems for search indexing

• US 7,370,035 B2
• Filed: 09/03/2003
• Issued: 05/06/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/03/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: X1 Discovery, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Idealab IdeaLab
• Inventors: Gross, William, Colwell, Steven Lee
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Hosain
• Assistant Examiner(s): Saeed, Usmaan
• Application Number:
  US10/654,588
• Publication Number:
  US 20040133564A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,707 Days
• Field of Search: 707 2- 3, 707 5- 6
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 16/332 Query formulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/338 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• 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 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99939 Privileged access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99952 Coherency, e.g. same view to multiple users
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability

Abstract

The present invention provides for quick and efficient searching. One embodiment includes a first instruction configured to read at least a first search string and a second search string entered into a same first search field, and a second instruction configured to incrementally filter search results to locate at least a first document that has a least a first word that begins with the first string and a second word that begins with the second string.

Claims

1. A method of performing a search comprising:

receiving a first string in a first search field;

in response to receiving the first string, incrementally locating a first group of documents that has at least a first word that begins with the first string;

receiving a second string in the first search field, wherein the first and second strings are separated by a string separator character in the first search field;

in response to receiving the second string, incrementally locating a second group of documents that has at least a second word that begins with the second string and identifying one or more documents that are included in each of the first and second groups of documents; and

displaying an indication of one or more of the identified one or more documents that are included in each of the first and second groups of documents.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying a portion of a selected document of the documents that are included in each of the first and second groups of documents.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising automatically highlighting a first occurrence of the first word in the selected document.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising highlighting at the same time a plurality of occurrences of the first word in the selected document while not highlighting portions of text between occurrences of the first word.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the documents comprise one or more of emails, text documents, contact information, appointment information, task information, music files, system files, photographs, and images.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the documents comprise emails and the method further comprises automatically displaying in a user interface a first occurrence of the first word in a first of the identified one or more emails.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some of the documents comprise at least the following email fields in which one or more of the first and second strings may be located:

to, from, cc, bcc, subject, body.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the single search field corresponds with a single field of the documents and the incrementally locating steps are performed only on content of the single field of the documents.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the single field of the documents comprises one of:

to, from, cc, bcc, subject, and body fields of email documents.

10. A search apparatus stored on a computer readable medium, the search apparatus comprising instructions configured to be executed by a computing device in order to perform the method of:

receiving a first string in a first search field;

in response to receiving the first string, incrementally locating a first group of documents that has at least a first word that begins with the first string;

receiving a second string in the first search field, wherein the first and second strings are separated by a string separator character in the first search field;

in response to receiving the second string, incrementally locating a second group of documents that has at least a second word that begins with the second string and identifying one or more documents that are included in each of the first and second groups of documents; and

displaying an indication of one or more of the identified one or more documents that are included in each of the first and second groups of documents.