System and method of searching for organizing and displaying search results

• US 7,526,478 B2
• Filed: 03/03/2006
• Issued: 04/28/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/03/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Novell Incorporated (Open Text Corporation)
• Inventors: Friedman, Nathaniel Dourif
• Primary Examiner(s): LEROUX, ETIENNE PIERRE
• Application Number:
  US11/366,671
• Publication Number:
  US 20070033184A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,152 Days
• Field of Search: 707/2, 707/4, 707/6, 707/5, 707/10, 382/186, 709/202
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3438 monitoring of user actions tracking the activity of the user H04L67/535
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/337 Profile generation, learning or modification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/338 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9038 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/81 Threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/86 Event-based monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access

Abstract

The invention is directed to a system and method of searching a focal object for related objects. The invention may extract clues or information from the focal object and search the information to identify related objects. The invention also may leverage a chronological timeline of user action information to infer additional relationships with the focal object. The results may be displayed together in a graphical user interface and/or forwarded to a search result recipient. Further, an association graph may graphically depict the focal object and each related object as nodes in a graph.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of performing a search, comprising:

receiving a selection of a focal object from a user via a graphical user interface;

in response to receiving the selection of the focal object from the user, automatically and without subsequent user intervention;

i) extracting focal information from the focal object;

ii) performing a search on the focal information to identify one or more related objects;

iii) performing query chaining, wherein query chaining involves a process of both extracting related information from the identified one or more related objects and performing a search on the extracted related information to identify one or more additional related objects, the process being repeated until a threshold is met; and

iv) displaying, in the graphical user interface, the focal object, the identified one or more related objects and the identified one or more additional related objects.

2. A computer-implemented method of performing a search, comprising:

receiving a selection of a focal object from a user via a graphical user interface;

in response to receiving the selection of the focal object from the user, automatically and without subsequent user intervention;

i) extracting focal information from the focal object;

ii) performing a search on the focal information to identify a first related object;

iii) extracting first related information from the first related object;

iv) performing a search on the first related information to identify a second related object;

v) repeating, until a threshold is met, both extracting of related information from the identified related objects and performing of a search on the extracted related information to identify subsequent related objects; and

vi) displaying, in the graphical user interface, the focal object, the identified first related object, the identified second related object, and the identified subsequent related objects.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein extracting focal information includes extracting user action information relating to the focal object from a chronological timeline as focal information.

4. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

extracting second related information from the second related object, and

performing a search on the second related information to identify a third related object.

5. The method according to claim 2, further comprising displaying the focal object, first related object and second related object together in the graphical user interface.

6. The method according to 5, wherein the first related object becomes a new focal object when a user selects the first related object in the graphical user interface, and wherein in response to the selection, the previous focal object is identified as a related object of the new focal object and is displayed with the new focal object.

7. The method according to claim 2, wherein extracting focal information includes extracting at least one of text of the focal object and meta data of the focal object.

8. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

generating an association graph comprising nodes representing the focal object, the first related object, and the second related object, and links representing relationships between the focal object, the first related object, and the second related object, wherein the relationships between the focal object, the first related object, and the second related object are inferred based on one or more of;

user action information associated with the objects, content of the objects, or context in which the objects are accessed by the user.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the association graph comprises nodes representing meta data related to the focal and related objects, and links representing relationships between the meta data.

10. The method according to claim 8, wherein generating the association graph comprises:

creating a first node representing the focal object in response to the selection of the focal object;

creating a second node representing the first related object in response to the identification of the first related object based on the search performed on the focal information, and creating a link representing the relationship between the focal object and the first related object; and

creating a third node representing the second related object in response to the identification of the second related object based on the search performed on the first related information, and creating a link representing the relationship between the first related object and the second related object.

11. The method according to claim 2, wherein the focal object, first related object and second related object are forwarded to a search recipient as search results.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein the search recipient accesses at least one of the focal object, the first related object and the second related object from the forwarded search results.

13. The method according to claim 2, wherein the focal object comprises an object that a user is currently interacting with or desires to have as a focus of a search.

14. The method according to claim 2, wherein steps i) to vi) are performed in response to the user submitting a search query identifying the focal object.

15. A computer-implemented system for performing a search, comprising:

a graphical user interface that receives a selection of a focal object from a user; and

an object determining system having

a focal information extractor that in response to receiving the selection of the focal object from the user, automatically and without subsequent user intervention extracts focal information from the focal object, and

a related object identifier that in response to receiving the selection of the focal object from the user, automatically and without subsequent user intervention;

i) performs a search on the focal information to identify a first related object,

ii) extracts first related information from the first related object,

iii) performs a search on the first related information to identify a second related object, and

iv) repeatedly performs both extraction of related information from the identified related objects and a search on the extracted related information to identify subsequent related objects, until a threshold is met,

wherein the graphical user interface displays the focal object, the identified first related object, the identified second related object, and the identified subsequent related objects.

16. The system according to claim 15, wherein the focal information extractor further extracts user action information relating to the focal object from a chronological timeline as focal information.

17. The system according to claim 15, wherein the related object identifier further extracts second related information from the second related object and performs a search on the second related information to identify a third related object.

18. The system according to claim 15, wherein the graphical user interface displays the focal object, first related object and second related object.

19. The system according to 18, wherein the first related object becomes a new focal object when a user selects the first related object in the graphical user interface, and wherein in response to the selection, the previous focal object is identified as a related object of the new focal object and is displayed with the new focal object.

20. The system according to claim 15, wherein the focal information extractor extracts at least one of text of the focal object and meta data of the focal object.

21. The system according to claim 15, further comprising:

an association graph generator for generating an association graph comprising nodes representing the focal object, the first related object, and the second related object, and links representing relationships between the focal object, the first related object, and the second related object, wherein the relationships between the focal object, the first related object, and the second related object are inferred based on one or more of;

user action information associated with the objects, content of the objects, or context in which the objects are accessed by the user.

22. The system according to claim 21, wherein the association graph comprises nodes representing meta data related to the focal and related objects, and links representing relationships between the meta data.

23. The system according to claim 21, wherein the association graph generator:

creates a first node representing the focal object in response to the selection of the focal object;

creates a second node representing the first related object in response to the identification of the first related object based on the search performed on the focal information, and creates a link representing the relationship between the focal object and the first related object; and

creates a third node representing the second related object in response to the identification of the second related object based on the search performed on the first related information, and creates a link representing the relationship between the first related object and the second related object.

24. The system according to claim 15, further comprising a forwarding system for forwarding a search result comprising the focal object, first related object and second related object to a search recipient.

25. The system according to claim 24, wherein the search recipient accesses at least one of the focal object, the first related object and the second related object from the forwarded search result.

26. The system according to claim 15, wherein the focal object comprises an object that a user is currently interacting with or desires to have as a focus of a search.