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Free text and attribute searching of electronic program guide (EPG) data

  • US 7,885,963 B2
  • Filed: 03/24/2003
  • Issued: 02/08/2011
  • Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2003
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method of searching electronic program guide (EPG) data, comprising:

  • receiving a text search string by way of a search string receiver, wherein the text search string contains one or more text terms and one or more attribute terms;

    normalizing the text search string to make searchable terms by;

    applying spell checking to the text search string,identifying a word as being misspelled, andappending a corrected form of the word identified as being misspelled to the searchable terms to conduct a conditional search based on the corrected form of the word;

    separating the searchable terms into text terms and attribute terms by way of a string interpreter, the string interpreter parsing the text search string to separate the searchable terms into the text terms and the attribute terms by comparing the searchable terms with a list of attributes for identifying the attribute terms;

    performing a text search in the EPG data for each text term;

    performing an attribute search in the EPG data for each attribute term; and

    ranking results from the text and attribute searches for displaying search results conforming to the text search string, the ranking comprising lowering a relevancy ranking of hits resulting from the conditional search on the corrected form of the word when search results are obtained based on the word identified as being misspelled.

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