Search engine supporting mixed image and text search input

• US 8,782,072 B2
• Filed: 10/29/2012
• Issued: 07/15/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Enpulz LLC
• Inventors: Bennett, James D.
• Primary Examiner(s): PANNALA, SATHYANARAYA R
• Application Number:
  US13/662,837
• Publication Number:
  US 20130054561A1
• Time in Patent Office: 624 Days
• Field of Search: 707/763, 707/999.003, 707/999.102, 382/100, 382/305, 382/177
• US Class Current: 707/763
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/50 of still image data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

Searching of images by correlating a search image with a plurality of images hosted in Internet based servers by an image search server. The image search server supports delivery of search result pages to a client device based upon a search string or search image, and contains images from a plurality of Internet based web hosting servers. The image search server delivers a search result page containing images upon receiving a search string and/or search image from the web browser. The selection of images in the search result page is based upon: (i) word match, that is, by selecting images, titles of which correspond to the search string; and (ii) image correlation, that is, by selecting images, image characteristics of which correlates to that of search image. The selection of images in the search result page also occurs on the basis of popularity.

Claims

1. A method performed by an image search infrastructure that supports delivering of images to a client device containing a web browser, the method comprising:

receiving a search string and a search image from the client device'"'"'s web browser;

selecting a first set of images from a plurality of images, the plurality of images having been identified along with associated text during a web crawling process, the first set of images comprising images with associated text that matches words of the search string;

selecting a second set of images from the plurality of images, the second set of images comprising images having characteristic parameters that are similar to the characteristic parameters of the search image;

generating a plurality of tables, wherein a first table is generated based on the search string with each first table entry identifying a corresponding image of the first set of images and a second table is generated based on the search image with each second table entry identifying a corresponding image of the second set of images;

sorting the plurality of tables to generate a plurality of sorted tables; and

delivering a first search result page comprising at least a first portion of the first set of images and at least a second portion of the second set of images, wherein the first search result page includes images selected based on the plurality of sorted tables.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing adult content filtering.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the performing of the adult content filtering being responsive to an adult filtering selection made via the web browser.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising analyzing the plurality of images and the search image to identify the characteristic parameters.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the analysis of the plurality of images occurs in advance of receiving the search image.

11. The image search infrastructure of claim 5, further comprising storage that has both a first data structure and a second data structure, the first data structure containing data relating to the characteristics of the plurality of images, and the second data structure containing the associated text.

6. An image search infrastructure that supports a delivery of images selected from a plurality of images to a client device with a web browser, the plurality of images and associated text being identified in a web crawling process, the image search infrastructure comprising:

a communication interface;

a processing infrastructure that receives via the communication interface a search string and a search image;

the processing infrastructure being capable of identifying both a first set of images and a second set of images, the first set of images being identified by;

comparing the search string with the associated text of the plurality of images, and the second set of images being identified by comparing characteristics of the search image with characteristics of the plurality of images;

generating a first table based on the search string with each first table entry identifying a corresponding image of the first set of images and a second table based on the search image with each second table entry identifying a corresponding image of the second set of images;

sorting the first table and the second table to generate sorted first and second tables; and

the processing infrastructure delivers, based on the sorted first and second tables, at least one of the first set of images and the second set of images via the communication interface.

7. The image search infrastructure of claim 6, wherein the delivery comprises images that pass an adult content filtering process.

8. The image search infrastructure of claim 7, wherein the adult content filtering process is selected to be applied in response to a user setting indication.

9. The image search infrastructure of claim 6, wherein the processing infrastructure analyzes the plurality of images and the search image to identify the characteristic parameters.

10. The image search infrastructure of claim 9, wherein the analysis of the plurality of images occurs in advance of receiving the search image.

12. An image search infrastructure that supports deliveries of images selected from a plurality of images to a plurality of client devices, the plurality of images and associated text being identified in a web crawling process, the image search infrastructure comprising:

a communication interface;

a processing infrastructure that receives via the communication interface a plurality of search input from the plurality of client devices, each of the plurality of search input comprising at least one of a search string and a search image;

the processing infrastructure responds to a first of the plurality of search input via a text matching process to generate a first search results containing first images;

the processing infrastructure further configured to;

generate a plurality of tables, wherein a first table is generated based on at least one search string with each first table entry identifying a corresponding image identified based upon the at least one search string and a second table is generated based on at least one search image with each second table entry identifying a corresponding image identified based upon the at least one search image;

sort the plurality of tables to generate a plurality of sorted tables; and

the processing infrastructure responds to a second of the plurality of search input via an image characteristics matching process to generate a second search results containing second images, wherein the second images comprise images selected based on the plurality of sorted tables.

13. The image search infrastructure of claim 12, wherein the processing infrastructure responds to a third of the plurality of search input by delivering images generated using both the text matching process and the image characteristic matching process.

14. The image search infrastructure of claim 12, wherein the processing infrastructure applies an adult content filtering process in response to a user setting.

15. The image search infrastructure of claim 12, wherein the processing infrastructure analyzes the plurality of images to identify image characteristic parameters in advance of receiving the plurality of search input.

16. The image search infrastructure of claim 15, further comprising storage that has both a first data structure and a second data structure, the first data structure containing image characteristic parameters of the plurality of images, and the second data structure containing the associated text.

17. The image search infrastructure of claim 12, wherein at least one of the first search results and the second search results are sorted based on at least one factor.

18. The image search infrastructure of claim 17, wherein the at least one factor comprises a popularity factor.

19. The image search infrastructure of claim 12, wherein the second search results are sorted based on how close image characteristics of the search image match as determined by the image characteristics matching process.

20. A method performed by an image search infrastructure that supports deliveries of images selected from a plurality of images to a plurality of client devices, the plurality of images and associated text being identified in a web crawling process, the method comprising:

receiving via the communication interface a plurality of search input from the plurality of client devices, each of the plurality of search input comprising at least one of a search string and a search image;

generating, using a text matching process, a first search results containing first images, wherein the text matching process comprises generating a first table based on the search string with each first table entry identifying a corresponding image of the first images;

generating, using an image characteristics matching process, a second search results containing second images, wherein the image characteristics matching process comprises generating a second table based on the search image with each second table entry identifying a corresponding image of the second images;

sorting the first table and the second table to generate first and second sorted tables; and

delivering the first search results and the second search results, based at least in part on the first and second sorted tables.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the first search results and the second search results are both delivered to a first device of the plurality of client devices.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the first device produces a single visual image that contains at least portions of both of the first search results and the second search results.

23. The method of claim 20, further comprising responding to a user selection via one of the plurality of user devices by performing adult content image filtering.

24. The method of claim 20, further comprising analyzing the plurality of images to identify image characteristic in advance of receiving the plurality of search input, the image characteristics being used in the image characteristics matching process.

25. The method of claim 20, further comprising storing in a first data structure image characteristic parameters of the plurality of images;

and storing in a second data structure the associated text.

26. The method of claim 20, further comprising sorting, based on at least one factor, at least one of the first search results and the second search results.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the at least one factor comprises a popularity factor.

28. The method of claim 20, wherein the second search results are sorted based on closeness of matching as determined by the image characteristics matching process.