Method and system for searching on integrated metadata

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.