Method of providing search results to a user

• US 7,855,811 B2
• Filed: 05/28/2007
• Issued: 12/21/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Silverbrook Research Pty Limited
• Original Assignee: Silverbrook Research Pty Limited
• Inventors: Silverbrook, Kia, Lapstun, Paul, Hollins, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Grant, II; Jerome
• Application Number:
  US11/754,313
• Publication Number:
  US 20080088886A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,303 Days
• Field of Search: 707/505, 707/522, 707/515, 707/517, 707/523, 707/514, 707/1, 345/335, 345/731, 345/347, 345/744, 717/130, 717/101, 717/102, 717/103, 717/104, 717/105, 717/107, 717/108, 717/110, 717/116, 717/118, 717/106, 709/215, 709/203, 719/311, 715/513, 715/526, 715/514, 715/515, 715/516, 715/517, 715/518, 715/519, 715/520, 715/521, 715/522, 715/523, 358/3.28, 358/504, 358/505, 358/539, 358/406, 358/443, 358/474
• US Class Current: 358/403
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0321 by optically sensing the absolute position with respect to a regularly patterned surface forming a passive digitiser, e.g. pen optically detecting position indicative tags printed on a paper sheet constructional details of pen-shaped pointing devices G06F3/03545, G06F3/03542, G06F3/037
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A method of providing search results to a user via user interaction with a printed substrate, said substrate comprising user information and coded data enabling the user interaction, said method comprising: (a) a user performing the user interaction with the substrate using a sensing device, said sensing device reading at least some of the coded data when operatively positioned or moved relative to the substrate and generating interaction data using the read coded data, said interaction data being indicative of the user interaction; and (b) said user interaction initiating a search and causing a first resource to be displayed on a display device, said first resource comprising search-results content wherein at least one parameter of said user interaction determines a search provider for performing said search.

Claims

1. A method of providing search results to a user via user interaction with a printed substrate, said substrate comprising user information and coded data enabling the user interaction, said method comprising:

(a) a user performing the user interaction with the substrate using a sensing device, said sensing device reading at least some of the coded data when operatively positioned or moved relative to the substrate and generating interaction data using the read coded data, said interaction data being indicative of the user interaction; and

(b) said user interaction initiating a search and causing a first resource to be displayed on a display device, said first resource comprising search-results content,

wherein at least one parameter of said user interaction determines a search provider for performing said search.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said at least one parameter is a zone of said user interaction on said printed substrate.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein one or mores zones of said printed substrate has a predetermined search provider associated therewith.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said at least one parameter is a publication in which said printed substrate is contained.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the publication has a predetermined search provider associated therewith.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said at least one parameter is a context of said user interaction.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein said context is derived from any one of the group comprising:

a resource description;

a subject description;

a user description; and

an environment description.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein said context comprises at least one context term selected from the group comprising:

a word, a keyword, a concept, a person, an organization, a place, a product, a publication, a weather condition, a geographic location, a date, a time of day, a day of the week, a current user location, a user home location, a user demographic indicator, a user preference, a search history, a click-through history, a user interest or a user language.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said user interaction causes a first computer system to:

generate a query expression comprising one or more search terms for said search provider;

form a request using the query expression;

determine the at least one parameter of the user interaction;

identify said search provider using the at least one parameter; and

send the request to said search provider.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said coded data is indicative of a region identity associated with the substrate and of a plurality of locations on the substrate, and said user interaction data is indicative of the region identity and of at least one position of the sensing device relative to the substrate, said user interaction causing a first computer system to:

identify and retrieve at least part of a page description corresponding to the printed substrate using the region identity;

generate the query expression using the page description and the at least one position of the sensing device.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the request is a request URI derived from the query expression.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the at least one search term is associated, in the page description, with a zone of the substrate containing the position of the sensing device.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein at least one search term is a keyword extracted from text in the zone.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one search term comprises one or more terms selected from the group comprising keyword, concept, person, organization, place, product, publication, weather, geographic location, date, time of day, day of the week, current location, user home location, user demographic, user preferences, search history, click-through history, user interest and user language.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one of said search terms is derived from a user description or an environment description.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the query expression is generated by combining the search terms using operators selected from the group comprising:

Boolean operators proximity constraint operators and occurrence constraint operators.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the at least one search term is a primary search term and at least one of the other search terms of the query expression is a context search term, said context search term being derived from a word, phrase, line, sentence, paragraph, section, article, document or region containing the zone.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein said context search term is contained in or associated with a word, phrase, line, sentence, paragraph, section, article, document or region containing the zone.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the at least one primary search term is a keyword and the at least one context search term is derived by at least partially determining a meaning of said keyword.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the meaning is at least partially determined using a method selected from the group comprising:

identifying a part of speech for said keyword;

identifying a supersense of said keyword; and

identifying a concept corresponding to said keyword in an ontology.