Locality indexes and method for indexing localities
First Claim
1. A geographic database locality index, storable on a storage medium, comprising:
- a pointer to at least one geographic feature in a geographic database; and
a set of one or more locality names associated with the at least one geographic feature, wherein the one or more locality names are selected from one or more locality name sources and are ordered by priority based on prevalence of the one or more locality names in common usage for an intended application.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Locality indexes are presented for use with electronic maps and databases. Each geographic feature in a geographic database is associated with locality names from various locality name sources. Context-sensitive tokenizing, normalizing, optimizing and matching of locality names eliminate duplicate and variant locality names, while preserving meaningfully different names. A locality names table includes the parsed representation of each locality name and other associated information, and a primary token for indexing is identified. A main source mask is created by allocating a bit for each locality name source used in the method. A separate source mask is stored for each geographic feature associated with a locality, a bit set for each source in which the locality can be found. Locality names associated with each geographic feature are indexed in a table of geographic features in order of prevalence for use in a given application.
112 Citations
45 Claims
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1. A geographic database locality index, storable on a storage medium, comprising:
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a pointer to at least one geographic feature in a geographic database; and
a set of one or more locality names associated with the at least one geographic feature, wherein the one or more locality names are selected from one or more locality name sources and are ordered by priority based on prevalence of the one or more locality names in common usage for an intended application. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
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34. A method for indexing a locality, comprising the steps of:
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receiving a selection of one or more geographic features from a geographic database;
determining a set of one or more locality names from a set of one or more locality name sources;
associating the locality names with the geographic features of the geographic database;
prioritizing for each geographic feature the associated locality names in order of prevalence in common usage for an intended application; and
ordering the locality names associated with each geographic feature by priority.
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35. A system that includes functionality for enabling a user to access localities and geographic features within the localities, comprising:
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a geographic database index having at least one geographic feature in a geographic database and a set of one or more locality names associated with the at least one geographic feature, wherein the one or more locality names are selected from one or more locality name sources and are ordered by priority based on prevalence of the locality name in common usage for an intended application; and
an applications program that uses the geographic database index in combination with displaying locality and geographic feature information to a user and with receiving input from a user. - View Dependent Claims (36, 37, 38)
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39. A portable hand-held device that includes functionality for enabling a user to access localities and geographic features within the localities, comprising:
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a geographic database index having at least one geographic feature in a geographic database and a set of one or more locality names associated with the at least one geographic feature, wherein the one or more locality names are selected from one or more locality name sources and are ordered by priority based on prevalence of the locality name in common usage for an intended application; and
an applications program that uses the geographic database index in combination with displaying locality and geographic feature information to a user and with receiving input from a user. - View Dependent Claims (40, 41, 42, 43)
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44. A Geographical Information Systems (GIS) based applications program that includes functionality for enabling a user to access localities and geographic features within the localities, comprising:
a geographic database index having at least one geographic feature in a geographic database and a set of one or more locality names associated with the at least one geographic feature, wherein the one or more locality names are selected from one or more locality name sources and are ordered by priority based on prevalence of the locality name in common usage for an intended application.
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45. A machine-readable medium, including operations stored thereon that, when processed by one or more processors, causes a system to perform the steps of:
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receiving a selection of geographic features from a geographic database;
determining a set of one or more locality names from a set of one or more locality name sources;
associating the locality names with the geographic features from the geographic database;
prioritizing for each geographic feature the associated locality names in order of prevalence in common usage for an intended application; and
ordering the locality names associated with each geographic feature by priority.
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Specification