Patent ID: 7406458
Filing Date: 2008-07-29
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A method comprising performing a machine-executed operation involving instructions, wherein the machine-executed operation is at least one of: A) sending said instructions over transmission media; B) receiving said instructions over transmission media; C) storing said instructions onto a machine-readable storage medium; and D) executing the instructions; wherein said instructions are instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform steps of: assigning, to each section of one or more sections of a document, a weight for that section; receiving one or more query terms from a user; finding text strings within the document, wherein each of the text strings contains at least one of the query terms; associating, with each text string of the text strings, a separate score that is based at least in part on a weight that is associated with a section of the document (a) in which at least a part of the text string is located and (b) that differs from the text string; based on a first score that (a) is associated with a first text string of the text strings and (b) was based at least in part on a weight that is associated with a section of the document in which at least a part of the first text string occurs, including the first text string within a particular set of selected text strings that were selected based at least in part on the separate scores that were associated with those selected text strings; after including the first text string within the particular set, determining, for each particular text string of the text strings that is not in the particular set, a separate changed score that is based at least in part on a number of the query terms that (1) occur in the particular text string but (2) do not occur in any other text string that is already in the particular set; and based on a second changed score that (a) is associated with a second text string of the text strings and (b) was based at least in part on a number of the query terms that (1) occur in the second text string but (2) do not occur in any other text string that is already in the particular set, including the second text string within the particular set; generating an abstract based on text strings that are in the particular set; and presenting the abstract to the user; wherein said section is defined based on at least one occurrence of a specified type of HTML tag.