Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-12
2004-02-10
Vu, Kim (Department: 2172)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C709S217000, C715S252000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06691104
ABSTRACT:
PARTIAL WAIVER OF COPYRIGHT
All of the material in this patent application is subject to copyright protection under the copyright laws of the United States and of other countries. As of the first effective filing date of the present application, this material is protected as unpublished material. However, permission to copy this material is hereby granted to the extent that the copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentation or patent disclosure, as it appears in the United States Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
Not Applicable
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to field of Internet Search Engines, Web browsers, and resource gathering and has special application in situations where these functions are further integrated with post-processing functions applied to the results of searches performed using theses software tools.
2. Description of the Related Art
The invention is related in the general area of Internet Search engine technology. Conventional Internet search engines permit users to search for a wide variety of information on the WWW. There are also domain-specific search engines (such as that exemplified by jCentral, http://www.ibm.com/developer/java) that provide users a more focused search within the desired domain.
Typically a successful search produces a search result page with result items (each usually contain a URL), an abstract, and some additional information about the resource found. A user can use a pointing device (e.g., mouse) to select a result item and request a download of the document. This is typically a manual process, with no existing system providing a predefined method of associating a post-processing application with the search results provided by the Internet search engine.
Description of the Prior Art
The prior art with few exceptions has no system or method available to associate tools and/or applications with the results of Internet search results.
Web-Based Prior Art
The prior art includes web-based systems that provide a static assignment of web tools and/or services mapped to search results. As an example, jCentral (http://www.ibm.com/developer/java) offers a class visualizer for Java source code or for Java applets. The present invention, however, goes beyond this concept by letting the user integrate their own tools and/or services and thus personalize the post-processing options.
File Extension Based Prior Art
However, it should be noted that a variety of static and/or contextual application/data associations are known in the art. Specifically, the Microsoft® Windows™ operating environment permits association of a file “type” as determined by a filename extension to be associated with a given handling application. The structure of this application association is illustrated in
FIG. 1
, with the modal dialog boxes implementing this functionality illustrated in FIG.
2
and FIG.
3
.
Referencing
FIG. 1
, an exemplary association of a Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) file is illustrated to show the techniques used by the prior art. In this configuration the tool and/or service association begins by using registration dialog(s) (
0101
) (detailed in FIG.
2
and
FIG. 3
) that associate an application such as the KODAK® image previewer KODAKPRV.exe with the “tif” file extension (
0102
). This association is typically stored in a Windows™ Registry (
0103
).
As an example of how this functionality is executed, the filename.“ABC.tif” (a Tagged Image Format File having a “tif” extension) may be selected within an application such as the FILE MANAGER (
0105
) and associated with a specific application such as the KODAKPRV.EXE image previewer using the modal dialog box illustrated in FIG.
2
. The application action and/or activation associated with triggering (generally in the form of double-licking a Microsoft® Windows™ file icon) the file is defined in a modal dialog box as typified in FIG.
3
. Referencing
FIG. 1
, it can be seen that the KODAKPRV.exe application (
0104
) is activated by reference to the Windows™ Registry (
0103
), the tool/service executed (
0106
), and the designated file is OPENed for access by the associated application (
0107
) by using the filename “ABC.tif” as a parameter to the tool/service application.
As with other methods of associating filename extensions to application activations, the prior art requires that for each application file the filename extension be properly keyed to permit proper association of the control application for that file type. This is a significant problem in processing data generated by a wide variety of search engines, as this information is generally not tagged with appropriate filename extension information.
Search Engine Prior Art
Referencing
FIG. 4
, the prior art with respect to search engines has traditionally not provided a method to permit the user to dynamic associate post-processing tools with the search results obtained from a web browser. The scope of the post-processing activity has in general been limited to the use of hyperlinks (
0401
) or some form of file extension based application activation methodology.
Objects of the Invention
Accordingly, the objects of the present invention are (among others) to circumvent the deficiencies in the prior art and affect one or more of the following objectives:
(1) Provide a system and method to permit automatic activation of user-defined applications in response to the Internet search request results; (2) Permit users to allow a wide variety of service applications and tools to be associated with the results of Internet searches.
While these objectives should not be understood to limit the teachings of the present invention, in general these objectives are achieved by the disclosed invention that is discussed in the following sections.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention is related in the general area of Internet Search engine technology. The present invention goes on step further that the prior art and provides the user the possibility to permit the search result items to be automatically used as input for post processing based on a personalized user profile that determines the type of processing tool and/or service and how it is to be applied to the search result item.
Referencing
FIG. 5
, the present invention permits the user to register personal tools and/or services for use in post-processing search results (
0501
). The example search results page illustrated in
FIG. 5
is based on the jCentral Java search engine, but the concept may be applied to any variety of search engines or the like. In illustrated example the tool could be a Java compiler residing on the user's personal computer (client side). The registration process contains information about the user, the name of the tool, the type of data the tool and/or service can handle as an input for processing, and how to access and use the tool (parameter).
Once registered, the user can take advantage of the present invention. The essentials of the invention are as follows. When the user performs a search query for Java source code, the search engine creates a result set. The present invention then determines the user and verifies whether there are registered tools and/or services for this user that can properly process the type of result item (e.g., Java source code). In this example the user registered a Java compiler. Using this context the present invention creates some HTML markup in the result page for the matching type (Java source code) that when activated by the user invokes the user's tool.
Example
To illustrate the teachings of the present invention, a concrete example based on the jCentral search engine (http://www.ibm.com/developer/java) will now be provided. jCentral lets users search for Java resources using Java specific search features. With the present invention, a user would typically first register a tool and/or ser
Kraft Reiner
Sundaresan Neelakantan
Fleit Kain Gibbons Gutman Bongini & Bianco P.L.
Gibbons Jon A.
Ly Anh
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