System and method for location based search
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsChristopher Weare, Ashley Feniello, Randy Kern
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system and method for performing geographic based document searching. A grid of location tiles is constructed corresponding to a desired geographic area. A location tag is assigned to each location tile. Documents are searched to identify a geographic location. The documents are associated with one or more location tags based on the location tiles corresponding to the identified geographic location. The geographic location of a search query is also identified. The search query is modified to include one or more location tags corresponding to the location of the search query. The search query is then matched to documents associated with location tags contained in the search query.
Claims20
A method of indexing a document, comprising:
- constructing one or more geographic grids of location tiles, each location tile having a location tag;
- searching a document to identify at least one geographic location;
- and
- associating the searched document with a location tag corresponding to the location tile containing the identified geographic location.
A method for performing a document search, comprising:
- determining a geographic location for a search query;
- modifying the search query to include a location tag corresponding to a location tile containing the geographic location of the search query;
- and
- matching the search query with one or more documents associated with the location tag.
A search engine for performing geographical based document searches comprising:
- a grid builder for constructing a grid of location tiles corresponding to a geographical area;
- a location tag assignment mechanism for assigning a location tag to each location tile;
- and
- a location association mechanism for identifying a geographic location in a document and associating the document with one or more location tags corresponding to location tiles containing the identified geographic location.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.