Searching, sorting, and displaying video clips and sound files by relevance

• US 8,364,693 B2
• Filed: 06/13/2008
• Issued: 01/29/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/13/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Relevant Holdings LLC
• Original Assignee: Inform, Inc. (CDC Corporation)
• Inventors: Peters, Gregory Alton, Hernacki, Paul Matthew
• Primary Examiner(s): Pulliam, Christyann
• Assistant Examiner(s): KUDDUS, DANIEL A
• Application Number:
  US12/138,770
• Publication Number:
  US 20090313236A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,691 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/765
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/245 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7844 using original textual content or text extracted from visual content or transcript of audio data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90324 using system suggestions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

A documents database has a plurality of documents, including but not limited to text files, video clips and sound files. Each document is associated with at least one category of a plurality of categories in a categories database, and each category has at least one keyword. A search request having at least one search term is received from a user, and a categories database is searched for categories having a keyword corresponding to the user search term to identify first level categories. The other keywords from the identified first level categories are retrieved and the documents database is searched for documents having a user search term or a retrieved keyword. The identified documents are then ranked and presented to the user. Other search expansion techniques, and display techniques, are also discussed.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of indicating documents related to categories and persons, the computer-implemented method comprising:

identifying the categories to which each document is related;

identifying the persons to which each document is related;

ranking the categories;

ranking the persons;

establishing an array comprising a plurality of cells, a first cell indicating the number of documents which are related to both a highest ranked category and a highest ranked person;

a second cell indicating the number of documents which are related to both a second highest ranked category and the highest ranked person;

a third cell indicating a number of documents which are related to both the highest ranked category and the second highest ranked person;

a fourth cell indicating a number of documents which are related to both the second highest ranked category and the second highest ranked person;

establishing links from the plurality of cells to the documents; and

displaying the array, wherein the array is a two dimensional display, wherein the identified categories and the identified persons of interest are the array'"'"'s two coordinate axes, wherein the displaying is performed such that the documents are presented in an array display which has at least two areas of correlation and relevant documents are ranked according to their scores in a first area and in a second area,

wherein the identifying and ranking of categories and persons and establishment of the array are performed using software running on at least one computer including at least one non-transitory computer storage medium for storing the software for performing the identification and ranking and establishing the array,

wherein a rank of a category (X) is determined by the following;

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the rank of a person (Y) is determined by the following:

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the coefficient for the broadness of impact rank is a function of type of political office.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the broadness of impact rank of the person Y is determined at least in part by whether the person Y is a current holder of the political office, a former holder of the political office, or a candidate for the political office.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the documents related to a cell are ranked, the documents are video files, and the ranking of the documents is based at least in part on at least one of the following:

whether the video is of a speech, a town hall meeting, a debate, an advertisement, or an interview; and

whether a source of the video is a candidate for or a holder of a political office, a media organization, a special interest group, or a political party.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the array is a linear array of rows and columns, a first row being a header row indicating a category, a first column being a header column indicating a person, and at least some of the cells of the array indicating the number of documents corresponding to both the rank of the category of that column in which the cell is located and the rank of the person of that row in which the cell is located.