Patent ID: 7567957
Filing Date: 2009-07-28
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A computer-implemented method for providing an information navigation system for searching a set of materials having navigation states, the method comprising: providing information including: storing the computed navigation states in a data structure in a memory; providing an interface to the information navigation system, the interface including a free-text search tool, and the interface providing a plurality of transitions, each transition providing a direct path, with no intervening navigation states, between two of the navigation states, wherein said each transition represents a change from a set of attribute-value pairs corresponding to an originating navigation state to the set of attribute-value pairs corresponding to a destination navigation state, wherein series of one or more transitions provides a path between any two navigation states, wherein the interface provides a direct path, with no intervening navigation states, between the first navigation state and the second navigation state, wherein the interface includes a guided search tool for enabling navigation from a current navigation state based on the plurality of transitions among the plurality of navigation states, and wherein the interface operates in an XML-based environment; searching, by using the computer, descriptive information associated with the set of materials, based at least in part on a free-text query accepted from the free-text search tool of the provided interface, to produce a set of free-text query interpretations; accepting a query to the navigation system based at least in part on the free-text query interpretations; and retrieving a stored navigation state from the data structure responsive to the query.