Search system using source and target image categorization

• US 9,244,945 B2
• Filed: 10/29/2012
• Issued: 01/26/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Inventors: Bennett, James D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Uyen
• Application Number:
  US13/662,784
• Publication Number:
  US 20130051686A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,184 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/532 Query formulation, e.g. graphical querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5838 using colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Abstract

An Internet infrastructure supports searching of images by correlating a category selection with that of plurality of images hosted in Internet based servers in selected categories. An image search server supports delivery of search result pages to a client device based upon a search image or category selection, and contains images from a plurality of Internet based web hosting servers. The image search server delivers characteristic analysis of an image to the client device upon request. The selection of images is based upon: (i) word match, that is, by selecting images, titles of which correspond to the search image; and (ii) image correlation, that is, by selecting images, image characteristics of which correlates to that of category selection. The selection of images in the search result page also occurs on the basis of popularity. The category selection server also selects category based upon user'"'"'s choice.

Claims

1. An online search system that services both a plurality of web hosting servers and a plurality of user computing devices via an Internet, the online search system comprising:

a processing infrastructure of a server computer that interacts with each of the plurality of web hosting servers via the Internet in a web crawl process to gather a plurality of images, the processing infrastructure associates, during the web crawl process, each of the plurality of images with at least one of a plurality of image groups, a first group of the plurality of image groups being associated with a plurality of first images of the plurality of images, each of the plurality of image groups being associated with at least one image characteristic;

a communication interface through which an uploaded search image is received by the processing infrastructure; and

the processing infrastructure, based on a first group selection from the plurality of image groups, performs a search associated with the first group selection to generate search results that identify only a portion of the plurality of first images.

2. The online search system of claim 1, wherein the processing infrastructure performs the search associated with the first group selection after determining that the uploaded search image has a first image characteristic associated with the first group selection.

3. The online search system of claim 1, wherein the processing infrastructure performs the search associated with the first group selection after receiving a user selection that identifies the first group selection.

4. The online search system of claim 1, wherein the generation of the search results is based on a comparison process associated with the uploaded search image.

5. The online search system of claim 1, wherein the generation of the search results is based on a comparison process associated with text data associated with each of the plurality of first images.

6. The online search system of claim 1, wherein the processing infrastructure communicates the search results to support a visual presentation on a first user device.

7. The online search system of claim 6, wherein the visual presentation supports receipt of another group related selection.

8. The online search system of claim 1, wherein the processing infrastructure also receives a first restriction that is applied by the processing infrastructure in performing the generation.