Search systems and methods using in-line contextual queries
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A method for processing a query, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:
- providing to a client a page comprising content to be presented to a user, wherein said page includes code that, when executed by the client, causes the client to perform the steps of;
associating, with a first portion of the content in said page, a first contextual search interface adapted to accept a query from the user;
associating, with a second portion of the content in said page, a second contextual search interface adapted to accept a query from the user;
associating with the first contextual search interface a first context vector derived from the first portion of the content;
associating with the second contextual search interface a second context vector derived from the second portion of the content;
wherein the first portion of the content in the page is different than the second portion of the content in the page;
wherein the first contextual search interface is different than the second contextual search interface;
wherein the first context vector is different than the second context vector;
while displaying the first portion of the content and the first contextual search interface in the page, receiving a query from the user via the first contextual search interface; and
transmitting the query with the first context vector to a search server for processing, wherein the search server is a server that is configured to (a) generate a search result using at least the query, the first context vector, and a plurality of hits obtained from searching a search corpus, and (b) return the search result to the user;
wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.
9 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Systems and methods are provided for implementing searches using contextual information associated with a Web page (or other document) that a user is viewing when a query is entered. The page includes a contextual search interface that has an associated context vector representing content of the page. When the user submits a search query via the contextual search interface, the query and the context vector are both provided to the query processor and used in responding to the query.
109 Citations
66 Claims
-
1. A method for processing a query, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:
-
providing to a client a page comprising content to be presented to a user, wherein said page includes code that, when executed by the client, causes the client to perform the steps of; associating, with a first portion of the content in said page, a first contextual search interface adapted to accept a query from the user; associating, with a second portion of the content in said page, a second contextual search interface adapted to accept a query from the user; associating with the first contextual search interface a first context vector derived from the first portion of the content; associating with the second contextual search interface a second context vector derived from the second portion of the content; wherein the first portion of the content in the page is different than the second portion of the content in the page; wherein the first contextual search interface is different than the second contextual search interface; wherein the first context vector is different than the second context vector; while displaying the first portion of the content and the first contextual search interface in the page, receiving a query from the user via the first contextual search interface; and transmitting the query with the first context vector to a search server for processing, wherein the search server is a server that is configured to (a) generate a search result using at least the query, the first context vector, and a plurality of hits obtained from searching a search corpus, and (b) return the search result to the user; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 22, 23, 26, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 55, 56, 64)
-
-
11. A method for providing contextually-based searching the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:
-
providing a page comprising;
(a) a first portion of content to be displayed to a user, (b) a second portion of content to be displayed to the user, (c) a first contextual search interface, associated with the first portion of content, that is adapted to accept a query from the user, and (c) a second contextual search interface, associated with the second portion of content, adapted to accept a query from the user;wherein the first portion of content is different than the second portion of content and the first contextual search interface is separate from the second contextual search interface; associating with the first contextual search interface a first context vector derived from the first portion of the content; associating with the second contextual search interface a second context vector derived from the second portion of the content, wherein the second context vector is different from the first context vector; wherein the first contextual search interface is configured to, in response to a user submitting a query via the first contextual search interface, submit the query and the first context vector to a search engine; and wherein the second contextual search interface is configured to, in response to a user submitting a query via the second contextual search interface, submit the query and the second context vector to a search engine; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices. - View Dependent Claims (24, 35, 36, 65, 66)
-
-
12. A method for creating a search interface, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:
-
receiving a first portion of page content from a client; tokenizing the received first portion of page content to identify one or more tokens representative of the first portion of page content; generating a first context vector from the received first portion of page content based on the identified one or more tokens; creating a first contextual search code block, the first contextual search code block including the first context vector, the first contextual search code block further including first display code for displaying a first contextual search interface and first query code for submitting a user query entered via the first contextual search interface to a search server together with the first context vector; and returning the first contextual search code block to the client in response to receiving the first portion of the page content; receiving a second portion of page content from a client, wherein the second portion is different than the first portion; tokenizing the received second portion of page content to identify one or more tokens representative of the second portion of page content; generating a second context vector from the received second portion of page content based on the identified one or more tokens, wherein the second context vector is different than the first context vector; creating a second contextual search code block, the second contextual search code block including the second context vector, the second contextual search code block further including second display code for displaying a second contextual search interface and second query code for submitting a user query entered via the second contextual search interface to the search server together with the second context vector, wherein the second contextual search interface is separate from the first contextual search interface; and returning the second contextual search code block to the client in response to receiving the second portion of the page content; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 27, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57)
-
-
28. A method comprising:
-
a web developer causing page content from a web page to be submitted to a context processing module; in response to the submitted page content, the context processing module generating and returning a code block based on the submitted page content; wherein the code block includes a context vector derived by the contextual search utility from the page content; the web developer causing the code block to be inserted into the web page in association with the page content; a web client interpreting the web page, and, based on said interpreting;
(1) displaying at least the page content, and (2) displaying a contextual search interface based upon the code block;in response to user input received via the contextual search interface while displaying at least the page content, based on the code block, the web client sending the context vector and a query entered by the user to a search engine; the search engine executing a search based upon the query and the context vector; and the search engine returning search results for the search to the web client for display to the user; wherein at least the steps of generating the code block, interpreting the web page, executing the search, and returning search results are performed by one or more computing devices. - View Dependent Claims (58)
-
-
29. A method comprising:
-
associating, with a first portion of content in a page, a first contextual search interface adapted to accept a query from the user; associating, with a second portion of content in said page, a second contextual search interface adapted to accept a query from the user; associating with the first contextual search interface a first context vector derived from the first portion of content; associating with the second contextual search interface a second context vector derived from the second portion of content; wherein the first context vector is different than the second context vector; wherein the first portion of content in the page is different than the second portion of content in the page; while displaying the first portion of content and the first contextual search interface, receiving a first query from the user via the first contextual search interface; and while displaying the second portion of content and the second contextual search interface, receiving a second query from the user via the second contextual search interface; and transmitting the first query with the first context vector to a search server for processing; and transmitting the second query with the second context vector to a search server for processing; wherein the search server is a server that is configured to (a) generate a search result using at least a query, a context vector, and a plurality of hits obtained from searching a search corpus, and (b) return the search result to the user; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices. - View Dependent Claims (30, 31, 32, 33, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63)
-
Specification