Patent ID: 7788272
Filing Date: 2010-08-31
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A method for providing a search service, comprising: assigning a set of license rights to a customer site; storing the set of license rights along with customer information at an access rights database for the customer site; receiving a search request for a search property from a user device associated with the customer site via a communications network; selecting a set of information sources corresponding to resource materials at the customer site; searching the accessible information sources with the search request to identify one or more documents that include the search property; determining which documents the user has access rights to view based upon the assigned license rights of the customer site as stored in the access rights database to produce a set of search results; delivering the search results to the user device; allowing a user to select an information source from the search results; determining a number of viewable copies of the information source for which the customer site has license rights based upon the set of access rights stored in the access rights database; determining a number of delivered copies of the information source currently being used by other user devices associated with the customer site; and providing a copy of the information source to the user device if the number of delivered copies plus the provided copy does not exceed the license rights of the customer site.