Using boundaries associated with a map view for business location searching

• US 7,373,246 B2
• Filed: 05/27/2005
• Issued: 05/13/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: O'Clair, Brian
• Primary Examiner(s): Zanelli; Michael J.
• Application Number:
  US11/139,032
• Publication Number:
  US 20060271280A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,082 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 701/208
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries

Abstract

A system aggregates entity location information from multiple documents distributed among multiple locations in a network. The system searches the entity location information to identify a first set of entities located within the entirety of a first geographic region selected by a user. The system provides a first digital map to the user via a network, the first digital map including the first geographic region and further including visual representations of the first set of identified entities and their associated geographic locations.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

aggregating entity location information from a plurality of documents distributed among a plurality of locations in a network;

searching the entity location information to identify a first set of entities located within the entirety of a first geographic region selected by a user;

providing a first digital map to the user via the network, the first digital map covering the first geographic region and including visual representations of the first set of identified entities and their associated geographic locations;

receiving a selection from the user that identifies a second geographic region in response to the user interacting with the first digital map, where the selection includes at least one of zooming in or zooming out of the first digital map or traversing north, south, east or west with respect to the first digital map to identify the second geographic region;

automatically searching the entity location information to identify a second set of entities located within the entirety of the second geographic region in response to receiving the selection; and

providing a second digital map to the user via the network, the second digital map encompassing the second geographic region and including visual representations of the second set of identified entities and their associated geographic locations.

2. The method of claim 1, where the aggregated entity location information is indexed.

3. The method of claim 2, where searching the entity location information comprises:

searching the indexed entity location information to identify entities located within the first and second geographic regions.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

ranking the identified entities located within the first and second geographic regions,

where providing the identified entities to the user comprises;

providing the ranked identified entities to the user.

5. The method of claim 1, where the entities comprises businesses, private residences, or government offices.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying latitude and longitude information that corresponds to the first and second geographic regions.

7. The method of claim 6, where searching the entity location information comprises:

comparing latitude and longitude information associated with the entity location information with the latitude and longitude information that corresponds to the first and second geographic regions to identify the first set of entities located within the entirety of the first geographic region and the second set of entities located within the entirety of the second geographic region.

8. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

defining a first geographic region associated with a digital map based on first user input;

searching business location information to identify a first set of businesses located within an entirety of the first geographic region;

defining a second geographic region associated with the digital map based on second user input, where the second geographic region is defined by at least one of zooming in or zooming out of the digital map or traversing north, south, east or west with respect to the digital map to define the second geographic region; and

automatically searching the business location information to identify a second set of businesses located within an entirety of the second geographic region in response to defining the second geographic region.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

providing a list of the identified second set of businesses to the user at a same time as providing a second digital map that depicts the second geographic region.

10. The method of claim 8, where the first geographic region has a first scale and where the second geographic region has a second scale that is different than the first scale.

11. The method of claim 8, where the first geographic region is centered on a first geographic location and the second geographic region is centered on a second, different geographic location.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

aggregating the business location information from a plurality of distributed documents.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

indexing the aggregated business location information.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein searching the business location information comprises:

searching the indexed business location information to identify entities located within the entirety of the second geographic region.