US 8,275,773 B2Granted

Method of searching text to find relevant content

OwnerStuart Donnelly, Can Deniz Akyuzinventors

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Abstract

A method of locating relevant documents wherein documents are given a fingerprint comprising weights associated with particular topic categories of a classification system, each weight representing a degree to which the document relates to the particular topic category. Documents whose fingerprints have a predetermined degree of mathematical overlap with the fingerprint may be considered relevant. A user is alerted to new relevant documents. Advertisers can offer advertisements near search results that achieve a predefined amount of relevance to text submitted by the advertiser rather than bidding on keywords. Unwanted content may be blocked from the search and filters to further refine the search may be used. E-mail spam may be blocked using textual relevance rather than keywords. Visual cues linked to a hierarchy of relevance help display the relevant documents. The methods may be used in combination with keyword searching.

Claims6

Dependent claims

A method of alerting a user that new documents relevant to a search of the user have entered a database, the method having a scalable time complexity of O(NX) where 0<=X<=1.0 for a universe of text on the world wide web, the method comprising:

calculating a reference fingerprint as a reference point;
classifying new documents that enter the database so that individual new documents have a fingerprint, the fingerprint comprising a list of weights associated with particular topic categories in a classification system, each of the weights representing a degree to which the document relates to the particular topic category that the weight is associated with, the weights obtained automatically from a computer program;
comparing the fingerprint for each classified new document with the reference fingerprint, and
alerting the user about new documents whose fingerprints have a threshold amount of mathematical overlap with the reference fingerprint,
the method configured to have the scalable time complexity for the universe of text whether the universe of text includes text written in one language or in more than one language.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 12/287,885Filed 14 Oct 2008 · continuation in part
Priority: 30 Mar 2007
Published: US 2010/0094879 A115 Apr 2010
Granted: 25 Sep 2012
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification3 codes

G06F 16/9535
Querying, e.g. by the use of web search engines: search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
G06F 16/93
Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types: document management systems
G06F
Computing and data processing

Family

Application11/731,751Parent of this continuation-in-part · filed 30 Mar 2007
US 2010/0094879 A1Pre-grant publication · published 15 Apr 2010
US 8,019,754 B2Parent of this continuation-in-part · filed 13 Sep 2011
US 2007/0239707 A1Published application
US 8,275,773 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.