Searching a database that stores information about individual habitable units

• US 8,706,718 B2
• Filed: 08/11/2011
• Issued: 04/22/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/10/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Expedia Inc. (Expedia Group, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Room 77, Inc. (Lexyl Travel Technologies LLC)
• Inventors: Gerstner, Brad, Yang, Calvin, Fliess, Kevin, Wong, Roger
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, CAM LINH T
• Application Number:
  US13/208,153
• Publication Number:
  US 20120066215A1
• Time in Patent Office: 985 Days
• Field of Search: 707/723
• US Class Current: 707/723
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/444 Spatial browsing, e.g. 2D maps, 3D or virtual spaces

Abstract

Techniques for creating and searching a database that stores information about a plurality of individual habitable units (IHUs) are provided. An example of an IHU is a hotel room. Image data that depicts where a plurality of IHUs reside relative to each other is placed on a base image, such as a satellite/map image. The base image is associated with a mapping that maps points on the base image to spatial (e.g., geographical) coordinates. The coordinates of the IHU may be used to generate a computer-rendered view from a window of an IHU. Also, label input is received that labels each IHU reflected in the image data with certain information. Each label indicates a value of an attribute of an IHU, such as its size, price, distance from elevators, etc. A query that targets information about each IHU may be processed and results returned that are ranked based on criteria associated with the query.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a search query that is associated with one or more search criteria that do not relate to availability;

in response to receiving the search query, analyzing hotel room data that comprises information about a plurality of hotel rooms that includes hotel rooms from multiple hotels to determine that attributes of each hotel room in a subset of the plurality of hotel rooms satisfy the one or more search criteria;

in response to determining that attributes of each hotel room in the subset of the plurality of hotel rooms satisfy the one or more search criteria, causing information about each hotel room in the subset to be displayed, wherein the information includes (a) identification data that uniquely identifies each hotel room in the subset relative to each other hotel room in the subset and (b) for each hotel room of one or more hotel rooms in the subset, a computer-rendered image that is of a view from a window of said each hotel room and that was generated, by a third party, based on geographical coordinates provided to the third party;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the information that is caused to be displayed includes, for each hotel room of one or more hotel rooms in the subset, the computer-rendered image and a second image, of a view from a window of said each hotel room, that was created by a camera that was operated by a user that was located in said each hotel room.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more search criteria include at least one of:

an indication of one or more floors, an amount of area of an hotel room, a price per unit of area, a category of an hotel room, whether an hotel room connects to another hotel room, whether smoking is allowed, whether a balcony is connected to a hotel room, an accessibility for disabled persons, a distance to an elevator, a distance to a lobby, a distance to a swimming pool, a distance to stairs, information about a view from a hotel room, or a distance to a vending machine.

14. One or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in claim 2.

15. One or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in claim 1.

16. One or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in claim 5.

3. A method comprising:

receiving a search query that is associated with one or more search criteria that do not relate to availability;

in response to receiving the search query, analyzing hotel room data that comprises information about a plurality of hotel rooms that includes hotel rooms from multiple hotels to determine that attributes of each hotel room in a subset of the plurality of hotel rooms satisfy the one or more search criteria;

in response to determining that attributes of each hotel room in the subset of the plurality of hotel rooms satisfy the one or more search criteria, causing information about each hotel room in the subset to be displayed, wherein the information includes identification data that uniquely identifies each hotel room in the subset relative to each other hotel room in the subset;

each hotel room of the plurality of hotel rooms is associated with a plurality of characteristics;

the subset comprises multiple hotel rooms of the plurality of hotel rooms;

analyzing hotel room data comprises, for each hotel room of the subset;

determining, based on the plurality of characteristics for said each hotel room, a plurality of normalized values, wherein each characteristic of the plurality of characteristics is associated with a different value of the plurality of normalized values,

applying a first weight to a first value of the plurality of normalized values to generate a first weighted value,

applying a second weight to a second value of the plurality of normalized values to generate a second weighted value, wherein the second value is different than the first value,

generating a rank score based on the first weighted value and the second weighted value, and

associating the rank score with said each hotel room;

causing the information about each hotel room in the subset to be displayed comprises causing the information about each hotel room to be displayed in an order that is based on the rank score associated with the said each hotel room;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

obtaining first hotel room data that indicates a first plurality of rooms of a first hotel that is owned and operated by a business first entity;

obtaining second hotel room data that indicates a second plurality of rooms of a second hotel that is owned and operated by second business entity that is different than the first entity;

updating the hotel room data to include information about the first plurality of rooms and the second plurality of rooms;

wherein receiving the search query is performed by an online service that is provided by an entity that is different than the first business entity and the second business entity.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein at least one search criterion of the one or more search criteria was not specified in the search query.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the plurality of characteristics comprise two or more of a size of the corresponding hotel room, a floor in a building in which the corresponding hotel room resides, a distance from the corresponding hotel room to an elevator, a category to which the corresponding hotel room belongs, whether smoking is allowed in the corresponding hotel room, whether the corresponding hotel room borders another hotel room, whether the corresponding hotel room has a balcony, whether the corresponding hotel room is accessible to disabled persons, a distance from the corresponding hotel room to stairs, a distance from the corresponding hotel room to a hotel lobby, a distance from the corresponding hotel room to a swimming pool, a distance from the corresponding hotel room to a vending machine, a distance from the corresponding hotel room to housekeeping services, a distance from the corresponding hotel room to a nightclub, or a distance from the corresponding hotel room to a noise source.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein applying the first weight to the first value and the second weight to the second value comprises determining the first weight and the second weight from the one or more search criteria.

9. The method of claim 3, further comprising limiting the hotel rooms in the subset to hotel rooms that are known to be available on one or more dates indicated in the search query.

10. The method of claim 3, wherein:

causing information about each hotel room in the subset to be displayed comprises causing reservation information to be displayed; and

the reservation information includes instructions for a user on how to reserve one or more hotel rooms in the subset.

11. The method of claim 3, wherein:

the search query is also associated with one or more availability criteria;

the step of analyzing further comprises analyzing to determine that attributes of each hotel room in the subset of the plurality of hotel rooms satisfy the one or more availability criteria.

13. One or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in claim 4.

17. One or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in claim 6.

18. One or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in claim 3.

19. One or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in claim 7.

20. One or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in claim 8.

21. One or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in claim 9.

22. One or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in claim 10.

24. One or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in claim 11.

12. A method comprising:

generating hotel room data, wherein generating the hotel room data comprises;

displaying a base image of a geographic area on which resides multiple hotel rooms;

receiving input that indicates boundaries of each unit of the multiple hotel rooms;

receiving a mapping between points on the base image and a plurality of spatial coordinates;

based on the input and the mapping, determining a set of spatial coordinates for each hotel room of the multiple hotel rooms;

after generating the hotel room data, receiving a search query that is associated with one or more search criteria that do not relate to availability;

in response to receiving the search query, analyzing the hotel room data that comprises information about a plurality of hotel rooms that includes hotel rooms from multiple hotels to determine that attributes of each hotel room in a subset of the plurality of hotel rooms satisfy the one or more search criteria;

in response to determining that attributes of each hotel room in the subset of the plurality of hotel rooms satisfy the one or more search criteria, causing information about each hotel room in the subset to be displayed, wherein the information includes identification data that uniquely identifies each hotel room in the subset relative to each other hotel room in the subset;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

23. One or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of the method recited in claim 12.