Method and system for searching on integrated metadata

• US 6,480,835 B1
• Filed: 12/31/1998
• Issued: 11/12/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Light, John
• Primary Examiner(s): Mizrahi, Diane D.
• Application Number:
  US09/224,520
• Time in Patent Office: 1,412 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/2, 707/3, 707/4, 707/5, 707/101, 707/104, 707/501, 709/201, 709/221, 704/270.1, 345/356
• US Class Current: 707/707
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/38 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access

Abstract

A method and system are disclosed for searching a set of documents using compact integrated metadata. Each document comprises a set of terms. The metadata comprises a set of topic profiles, each topic profile defining a relationship between a topic and the documents, a set of distinguishing terms for searching the documents by their component terms, and a set of document surrogates for allowing the documents to be searched by topic or by term. The method and system create references from each topic profile to document surrogates relevant to the corresponding topic, and create a set of references from each distinguishing term to document surrogates containing that term. The method and system accept a query and search on the documents using the metadata. The method and system provide the ability to filter the metadata before presentation to the user and to integrate searching on a client processor with searching on a server processor. The method and system provide the ability to maintain a set of search states, each search state describing a subset of the documents to be searched, and a set of filters, which are the queries which resulted in the subset of documents.

Claims

1. A method for searching a set of documents using metadata, the method comprising:

providing a set of documents, each document including a set of terms;

providing metadata including a set of topic profiles, a set of distinguishing terms and a set of document surrogates, each document surrogate including a reduced representation of a document in said set of documents;

for each topic profile creating a set of topic references, each topic reference referring to a document surrogate;

accepting a query; and

searching said set of documents based on said metadata.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of for each term in the set of distinguishing terms creating a set of term references, each term reference referring to a document surrogate.

3. The method of claim 1, each topic profile corresponding to a topic, each topic having a title, where the query comprises at least one of a set of terms and a set of topic titles.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of applying each topic profile to each document surrogate to return a measure of relevancy.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising the step of applying each topic profile to each document surrogate to return a measure of relevancy.

6. The method of claim 2, where the set of distinguishing terms has a size limit, the size limit being set before the set of distinguishing terms is created.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising the step of returning a set of references to documents corresponding to the query.

8. A method for searching a set of documents using integrated data, the method comprising:

providing a set of documents using, each document including a set of terms;

providing integrated metadata including a first set of search items and a second set of search items, the first set of search items relating to the terms included in each document in the set of documents and the second set of search items relating to the topic of each document in the set of documents;

for each item in the first set of search items, creating a set of references, each reference referring to a document in the set of documents;

for each item in the second set of search items, creating a set of references, each reference referring to a document in the set of documents;

accepting a query; and

searching said set of documents based on said integrated metadata.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising the step of returning a set of query references to documents corresponding to the query.

10. The method of claim 9, where the first set of search items has a size limit, the size limit being set before the set of search items is created.

11. A method for searching a set of documents using meadata, the method comprising:

providing a set of documents, each document including a set of terms;

providing metadata including a set of topic profiles;

for each topic profile creating a set of topic references, each topic reference referring to a document;

accepting a query; and

searching said set of documents based on said metadata.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of accepting a query.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of applying each topic profile to each document to return a measure of relevancy.

14. The method according to claim 11, further comprising:

accepting a filtering query;

applying the filtering query to the metadata to generate a subset of the metadata; and

creating filtered metadata by combining the subset of the metadata and the filtering query.

15. The method according to claim 14 where:

the step of accepting the filtering query comprises the step of accepting the filtering query at a first processor; and

the step of applying the filtering query comprises the step of applying the filtering query at a second processor.

16. The method of claim 15 further comprising the step of accepting a search query at the first processor.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising the step of applying the search query at the first processor.

18. A method of creating filtered metadata from a set of metadata, comprising:

accepting a filtering query;

applying the filtering query to the metadata, to create filtered metadata, at a first processor;

searching the filtered metadata at a second processor;

accepting a search query; and

searching a set of documents based on said metadata.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising the step of accepting a search query.

20. The method of claim 19 where the step of applying the filtering query comprises the step of applying the filtering query at a first processor, the method further comprising the step of searching the filtered metadata at a second processor.

21. The method of claim 18 where the step of applying the filtering query comprises the step of applying the filtering query at a first processor and where the step of searching the filtered metadata comprises the step of searching the filtered metadata at a second processor.

22. A method of searching a set of documents, comprising:

providing a set of documents;

maintaining on a client processor an at least one search domain, the at least one search domain including a set of references to documents and a set of previous search queries;

accepting a search query;

searching said set of documents base on said search domain; and

querying a server processor with the at least one search domain and the search query.

23. The method of claim 22 further comprising:

at the server processor, applying the search query to the search domain to produce a search result;

transmitting the search result from the server processor to the client processor; and

at the client processor, creating an updated search domain, the updated search domain comprising the search result and the search query.

24. The method of claim 22 further comprising:

after the query is accepted, producing a set of query references to returned documents corresponding to the query;

creating a search domain, the search domain comprising the set of query references and the query.

25. A method for searching a set of documents, the method comprising:

providing a set of documents, each document including a set of terms;

maintaining a set of search states, each search state comprising a set of references to at least a subset of the set of documents;

allowing a user to select a current search state from the set of search states;

accepting a user query; and

searching the documents corresponding to the set of references contained in the current search state using the user query.

26. A system for searching a set of documents using metadata, the system comprising:

providing a set of documents, each document including a set of terms;

providing metadata including a set of topic profiles, a set of distinguishing terms and a set of document surrogates, each document surrogate including a reduced representation of a document in said set of documents;

a profile module for creating for each topic profile a set of topic references, each topic reference referring to a document surrogate; and

a query module for accepting a query.

27. The system of claim 26, further comprising a term reference module for creating for each term in the set of distinguishing terms a set of term references, each term reference referring to a document surrogate.

28. The system of claim 27, each topic profile corresponding to a topic, each topic having a title, where the query comprises at least one of a set of terms and a set of topic titles.

29. A program storage device readable by a computer system, for storing a plurality of instructions for searching a set of documents using metadata, the plurality of instructions comprising:

providing a set of documents, each document including a set of terms;

providing meadata including a set of topic profiles, a set of distinguishing terms and a set of document surrogates, each document surrogate including a reduced representation of a document in said set of documents;

instructions for creating a set of topic references for each topic profile, each topic reference referring to a document surrogate; and

instructions for accepting a query.

30. The program storage device of claim 29, comprising further instructions for creating a set of term references for each term in the set of distinguishing terms, each term reference referring to a document surrogate.

31. The program storage device of claim 30, where each topic profile corresponds to a topic, each topic has a title, and the query comprises at least one of a set of terms and a set of topic titles.

32. A system for creating and searching filtered metadata from a set of metadata, the system comprising:

a filtering query input module located at a first processor for accepting a filtering query;

a filtering query application module located at a second processor for applying the filtering query to the metadata to create filtered metadata at said first processor;

a search query input module located at the first processor for accepting a search query; and

a search module located at the first processor for searching the filtered metadata using the search query.

33. A program storage device readable by a computer system, for storing a plurality of instructions for creating and searching filtered metadata from a set of metadata, comprising:

instructions for accepting a filtering query;

instructions for applying the filtering query to the metadata to create filtered metadata at a first processor;

instructions for accepting a search query; and

instructions for searching the filtered metadata at a second processor using the search query.

34. A system for searching a set of documents, the system comprising:

providing a set of documents, each document including a set of terms;

a client processor maintaining an at least one search domain, the at least one search domain comprising a set of references to documents and a set of previous search queries;

the client processor accepting a search query; and

the client processor querying a server processor with the at least one search domain and the search query.

35. A program storage device readable by a computer system, for storing a plurality of instructions for searching a set of documents, comprising:

instructions for maintaining on a client processor an at least one search domain, the at least one search domain including a set of references to documents and a set of previous search queries;

instructions for accepting a search query;

instructions for searching said set of documents based on said search domain;

instructions for querying a server processor with the at least one search domain and the search query.