Web browser with multilevel functions

• US 7,721,214 B2
• Filed: 07/28/2004
• Issued: 05/18/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/24/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: Rpx-Nw Acquisition LLC (RPX Corporation)
• Inventors: Dowling, Eric Morgan
• Primary Examiner(s): Huynh; Ba
• Application Number:
  US10/900,180
• Publication Number:
  US 20040267739A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,120 Days
• Field of Search: 715/738, 715/739, 715817-821, 715/827, 715/829, 707 3- 5
• US Class Current: 715/738
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• 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

Abstract

A architecture is provided to enable a client web browser to conduct and manage a multilevel search. The browser includes an application layer interface. The application layer interface is for coupling to network via a protocol stack. The browser also includes a markup language parser. The parser receives information from the application layer interface. The browser also includes a graphical user interface for interacting with a user. The graphical user interface allows a user to specify a set of multilevel search parameters. The browser also includes a markup language processor that receives input from the markup language parser and multilevel search parameters from the graphical user interface. The markup language processor conducts and manages a multilevel search to find specified information on a current web page or a web page referenced by the current web page in accordance with a parameterized search tree. The present invention also enables an automatic processes to print sets of linked web pages and to generate sitemaps, filtered sitemaps, filtered results pages in accordance with user specifications.

Claims

1. An article comprising:

a computer readable storage medium having stored thereon executable instructions that in response to being executed by one or more processors of a client-side computerized device operatively enable the one or more processors to;

access information from an application layer interface;

access a first parameter that is related to content, and a second parameter that identifies a linked set of documents; and

in response to an input received through a single selectable feature of a user interface indicating a desire to advance to a next location within the linked set of documents that includes an instance of the content related to the first parameter;

for a currently open document if the content is present in the currently open document, setting the next location to correspond to at least a portion of the currently open document in which the content is present;

if the content is not present in the currently open document, identifying a next document within the linked set of documents in which the content is present, and setting the next location to correspond to at least a portion of the next document in which the content is present; and

initiate display of the next location via a computer display monitor.

2. The article of claim 1, wherein at least one of the first parameter and/or second parameter are accessed via a user interface that comprises an interactive menu.

3. The article of claim 2, wherein the user interface is a part of a windows based graphical user interface.

4. The article of claim 2, where the user interface comprises a voice interface.

5. The article of claim 1, where the first parameter comprises one or more character strings.

6. The article of claim 1, wherein the second parameter identifies all documents whose hyperlink addresses correspond to branches of a given URL path name that are to be included in the linked set of documents.

7. The article of claim 1, wherein the first parameter comprises a Boolean keyword expression and the second parameter comprises an indication of a number of levels to search.

8. The article of claim 1, further comprising executable instructions that in response to being executed by the one or more processors enable the one or more processors to conduct a search for the next location while initiating display of at least the portion of the instance of the content related to the first parameter.

9. The article of claim 1, further comprising executable instructions that in response to being executed by the one or more processors enable the one or more processors to parse a markup language document that conforms to a dialect of XML.

10. The article of claim 1, further comprising executable instructions that in response to being executed by the one or more processors enable the one or more processors to:

construct a search result based on an indication of an image file type file extension associated with the first parameter.

11. The article of claim 1, wherein the second parameter indicates that hyperlinks that point from any document in the linked set of documents to documents whose hyperlink addresses are outside a given domain are to be excluded from the linked set of documents.

12. The article of claim 1, wherein the second parameter includes a domain setting that indicates that hyperlinks within a specified domain are to be followed without a specified maximum link depth level.

13. The article of claim 1, wherein the first parameter includes an indication of a tag type.

14. The article of claim 1, wherein the first parameter includes an indication of a file extension.

15. An article comprising:

a computer readable storage medium having stored thereon executable instructions that in response to being executed by one or more processors of a client-side computerized device would operatively enable the one or more processors to;

receive a first parameter that identifies at least one content of interest;

receive a second parameter that identifies a linked set of documents;

access at least a portion of the linked set of documents associated with at least a portion of the content of interest;

initiate presentation via a computer display monitor coupled to the client-side computerized device of at least a portion of a first document within the linked set of documents; and

in response to an input received through a single selectable feature of a user interface indicating a desire to advance to a next position within the linked set of documents;

for a currently open document, if the content is present in the currently open document, set the next location to correspond to at least a portion of the currently open document in which the content is present;

if the content is not present in the currently open document, identify a next document within the linked set of documents in which the content is present, set the next location to correspond to at least a portion of the next document in which the content is present, and initiate presentation via the computer display monitor of at least a portion of a next document within the linked set of documents, wherein the portion of the next document comprises at least one instance of at least a portion of the content of interest.

16. The article of claim 15, wherein the executable instructions, in response to being executed by the one or more processors, operatively enable the one or more processors to:

in response to the input, if there is another instance of at least a portion of the content of interest in the first document, initiate presentation via the computer display monitor of at least another portion of the first document, otherwise initiate presentation via the computer display monitor of at least the portion of the next document within the linked set of documents.

17. The article of claim 15, wherein the input is enabled via a mark-up language browser interface to initiate navigation through a plurality of positions within the linked set of documents based, at least in part, on at least a portion of the content of interest being associated with each of the plurality of positions.

18. The article of claim 15,

wherein the executable instructions, if executed by the one or more processors, operatively enable the one or more processors to:

receive the second parameter that identifies the linked set of documents; and

wherein the first parameter includes a Boolean keyword expression, and said second parameter comprises an indication of the number of levels associated with a search, and an indication to continue the search on a designated-next-linked page.

19. The article of claim 15, wherein one or more documents in the linked set of documents comprises one or more hyperlinks associated with one or more other documents in the linked set of documents.

20. The article of claim 15, wherein the documents in the linked set of documents are each associated with a respective uniform resource locator.

21. The article of claim 15, wherein the documents in the linked set of documents are linked via a domain name.

22. The article of claim 15, wherein the linked set of documents includes of one or more pages of search engine results, and each search engine result includes at least one hyperlink to a respective other document in the linked set of documents.

23. The article of claim 15, wherein the linked set of documents includes of one or more pages of search engine results, and each search engine result comprises at least one hyperlink to a respective other document in the linked set of documents, and the one or more pages of search results comprises at least one next-page link associated with a subsequent page of search results, and the next-page link is treated distinctly from the other hyperlinks in the linked set of documents while advancing through the linked set of documents to determine a next instance of at least a portion of the content of interest.

24. The article of claim 15, wherein the linked set of documents corresponds to documents pointed to by a set of search engine results, and each search engine result comprises at least one hyperlink to a respective document in the linked set of documents.

25. The article of claim 15, wherein the linked set of documents comprise, at least in part, at least one of a set of image files and/or a set of video files.