Application programming interface for text mining and search

• US 7,565,362 B2
• Filed: 07/01/2005
• Issued: 07/21/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/11/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Brill, Eric D., Ragno, Robert J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Vital; Pierre M
• Assistant Examiner(s): Vo; Truong V
• Application Number:
  US11/172,638
• Publication Number:
  US 20060101037A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,481 Days
• Field of Search: 707/2
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching

Abstract

Systems and methods are described that allow programmatic access to search engine results and query logs in a structured form. The search results can be retrieved from the search engine in an intermediary form that contains the information that is in the HTML pages provided to web browsers (potentially with additional information). This intermediary form can then be broken down on the client machine, using local resources, to assemble the structured objects. The library also provides for caching of the search results. This can be provided both on the local machine and on a remote database. When the results for a query exist in the caches, they can be retrieved from such location instead of querying the search engine. Documents and/or web pages can also be cached. The library can also be directed to operate only from the cache, effectively exposing a local data set instead of the remote search engine.

Claims

1. A system that provides data to a user, comprising the following components stored in computer memory and executable by a processor:

a library component that stores information relating to at least one result from a result set returned by a search engine, the result stored in an extensible mark-up language (XML) form, wherein the library component can automatically modify the structure of the at least one search engine result based upon at least one need of an application or one need of a user;

an application program interface (API) component that specifies how one or more applications interface to the library component to optimize utilization of at least one search engine result including at least one fabricated web page that is a result page of a particular search engine, employing the stored results from the returned search result sets of a plurality of search engines other than the particular search engine, wherein the web page is assembled from data extracted from the stored results;

an artificial intelligence (AI) component that determines an appropriate location for the at least one search engine result and notifies an accessing component of the appropriate location to provide requested search elements along with decision making based on learned action of a particular data customer in relation to a particular data source, the AI component makes the determination based at least in part on one of a support vector machine, a neural network, a back-propagation network, a feed forward back propagation network, radial basis network, fuzzy logic network, an expert system, a Bayesian network, a data fusion network, or a combination thereof; and

a results cache that stores at least one data object returned from a query, where the results cache can organize, edit and construct one or more data objects, the results cache can fabricate web pages that replicate the results from one or more data searches with or without modifications, additions, and removals.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a search engine that can accept a set of search elements and return a set of data objects that satisfy the accepted search elements.

3. The system of claim 2, the API component can interface to more than one search engine, and can switch between search engines without changing the application code.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a query log that stores information related to at least one search query employed with the search engine.

5. The system of claim 1, the library component combines at least two search engine result sets to implement with the at least one application.

6. A computer implemented method to optimize utilization of data received from at least one search engine, comprising:

storing at least two search engine results from the search result set returned by two or more search engines;

extracting at least one data element from the at least two search engine results, determining through at least one artificial intelligence technique an appropriate location for the at least two search engine results and notifying an accessing component of the appropriate location to provide requested search elements along with decision making based on learned action of a particular data customer in relation to a particular data source, the artificial intelligence technique includes a support vector machine, a neural network, a back-propagation network, a feed forward back propagation network, radial basis network, fuzzy logic network, an expert system, a Bayesian network, a data fusion network, or a combination thereof;

assembling the extracted data to optimize application development based upon at least one need of an application or one need of a user;

implementing the assembled search engine results in at least one application;

fabricating at least one web page that appears to be a result page of a particular search engine, employing the stored results from the returned search result sets of a plurality of search engines other than the particular search engine, wherein the web page is assembled from data extracted from the stored results; and

storing at least one data object returned from a query, the results cache can organize, edit and construct one or more data objects as well as fabricate web pages that replicate the results from one or more data searches with or without modifications, additions, and removals.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising storing data employed to perform a search in a query log.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising interrogating the one or more stored search results, the one or more search results contain at least one of a resource and a pointer to a resource.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the pointer is a uniform resource locator.

10. The method of claim 6, further comprising utilizing an application program interface (API) to locate one or more results and retrieve one or more stored results.

11. The method of claim 6, further comprising structuring the at least two search engine results to conform to application development requirements.

12. The method of claim 6, further comprising caching at least one of query and results on at least one of a local memory, a local storage device, and a remote server.

13. The method of claim 6, further comprising switching between two or more search engines.