Desktop client interaction with a geographical text search system

• US 7,599,988 B2
• Filed: 08/04/2003
• Issued: 10/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/05/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Piece Future Pte., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Metacarta, Inc.
• Inventors: Frank, John R.
• Primary Examiner(s): LIN, WEN TAI
• Application Number:
  US10/633,915
• Publication Number:
  US 20040078750A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,255 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries

Abstract

A method implemented by a client application running on a computer, the method involving retrieving an address associated with a server that provides a geolocating service to users who transfer electronic documents to that address, the geolocating service involving analyzing electronic documents that are electronically transferred to that address by remotely located client applications and from that analysis generating geolocation information for those electronic files; identifying at the client application a client document; and electronically transferring the identified client document to the address of the geolocating service so as to receive the geolocating service for the identified client document.

Claims

1. A method implemented by a client application running on a client computer, said method comprising:

retrieving an address of a server that provides a geolocating service that analyzes received electronic documents containing unstructured text to discover spatial identifiers contained within the unstructured text and generates for those received electronic documents geolocation information, said geolocation information identifying all spatial identifiers discovered within the unstructured text of the received electronic documents and also including geospatial coordinates for all spatial identifiers discovered within the unstructured text of the received electronic documents;

identifying at said client application a client document that includes unstructured text containing a plurality of unidentified spatial identifiers;

electronically transferring the identified client document to the address of the server providing the geolocating service; and

electronically receiving back from the server providing the geolocating service geolocation information for the client document, wherein the received geolocation information identifies all spatial identifiers among the plurality of unidentified spatial identifiers within the unstructured text including geographical coordinates for each of the identified spatial identifiers,

wherein the geographical coordinates are not found at a specific location in the document but rather is derived from analyzing the content of the document, and wherein each of the identified spatial identifiers is assigned a corresponding spatial relevance level for the client document as a measure of the degree to which the document relates to the spatial location mentioned in its spatial information content.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying at the client computer a plurality of client documents for which geolocation information is desired, said plurality of client documents being in addition to the previously mentioned client document and each of said plurality of documents including corresponding unstructured text that contains a corresponding plurality of unidentified spatial identifiers;

electronically transferring the identified plurality of client documents to the address of the server providing the geolocating service; and

electronically receiving back from server providing the geolocating service geolocation information for each client document among the plurality of client documents, wherein the received geolocation information for each document of the plurality of client documents identifies all spatial identifiers among the plurality of spatial identifiers in the corresponding unstructured text and spatial coordinates for each of the identified spatial identifiers, and a spatial relevance level for each of the plurality of client documents.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

electronically receiving back from said server a spatial document index that was generated for said plurality of client documents by said geolocating service.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein retrieving an address involves searching on the Internet for said address associated with the server that provides a geolocating service to users.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein retrieving an address involves reading said address from a local memory.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

electronically receiving back from said server said client document along with the geolocation information that was generated for the unstructured text within said identified client document by said geolocating service.

7. The method of claim 2 further comprising electronically receiving back from the server providing said geolocating service said plurality of client documents as well as the geolocation information that was generated by said geolocating service for the unstructured text within each of said plurality of client documents.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the spatial coordinates are latitude and longitude.

9. The method of claim 2, wherein the spatial coordinates are latitude and longitude.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the received geolocation information also includes a spatial relevance level for the client document.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the spatial relevance level of the client document is a measure of the relevance of the unstructured text of that client document to a user query.

12. The method of claim 2 wherein the received geolocation information also includes a spatial relevance level for each of the plurality of client documents.