Systems and methods for document searching

• US 8,600,972 B2
• Filed: 02/23/2012
• Issued: 12/03/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RELX Inc. (RELX PLC)
• Original Assignee: LexisNexis Group Inc. (RELX PLC)
• Inventors: Miller, David James
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, KIM T
• Application Number:
  US13/403,268
• Publication Number:
  US 20120150866A1
• Time in Patent Office: 649 Days
• Field of Search: 707/706, 707/757
• US Class Current: 707/706
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/31 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• 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

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for document searching. In one implementation, a computer-implemented method provides keyword searching. The method may receive a plurality of noisy keywords for a document collection. A server may generate tokens for a plurality of keywords in the document collection and merge the tokens to create an index. A search query may be received. The search query may include at least one search phrase. For the at least one search phrase, an indication may be received from a user specifying to perform one of a noisy phrase search or a noiseless phrase search. The method may search the index for the at least one search phrase based on the indication received from the user.

Claims

1. A system for creating an index for a document collection, the system comprising:

at least one processor; and

a computer readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, causes the processor to;

compare a keyword in one or more documents to a plurality of noisy keywords associated with a document collection;

determine whether the keyword is a noisy keyword;

determine, for one of the documents, a keyword position and a number of noisy keywords preceding the keyword;

create, for the one of the documents, a token including a document identifier, an indication whether the keyword is a noisy keyword, the keyword position, and the number of noisy keywords preceding the keyword; and

store the token in an index.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of noisy keywords are specific to a document.

3. The system of claim 1, the computer readable medium further storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, further causes the processor to:

receive a search query, wherein the search query includes at least one search phrase;

receive, for the at least one search phrase, an indication from a user specifying to perform one of a noisy phrase search or a noiseless phrase search;

process a search using the at least one search phrase, wherein the search can be performed as a noisy phrase search or as a noiseless phrase search; and

output a search result.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein, when a noiseless phrase search is performed, each keyword position is adjusted by the number of noisy keywords preceding the keyword.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the noisy phrase search includes noisy keywords in the search query and the noiseless phrase search ignores noisy keywords in the at least one search phrase.

6. The system of claim 3, the computer readable medium further storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, further causes the processor to:

determine whether the at least one search phrase is surrounded by quotations;

perform a noisy phrase search when the at least one search phrase is surrounded by quotations; and

perform a noiseless phrase search when the at least one search phrase is not surrounded by quotations.

7. The system of claim 3, wherein the search query is tokenized prior to performing the search.

8. The system of claim 3, wherein the search query includes both noisy search phrases and noiseless search phrases.

9. The system of claim 3, wherein, when a noiseless phrase search is performed, performing the noiseless phrase search at least in part by subtracting a value of the keyword position by the number of noisy keywords preceding the keyword.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a database storing the plurality of noisy keywords for the document collection.