Patent ID: 9098531
Filing Date: 2015-08-04
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A web-based proprietary digital photograph storage and sharing system, the system comprising: a digital file repository for storing and retrieving digital photographs via the Internet; a digital tagging system coupled to the digital file repository and configured to assign user-generated digital tags of arbitrary length to at least some of the digital photographs in response to user inputs, and embed such user-generated digital tags in the digital photographs in an exchangeable image file format (EXIF), wherein the user-generated digital tags include at least one type of data selected from the group consisting of a person's name, a location, a recipe, a date, a relationship, an event name, a rating, and a document type; a sorting system coupled to the digital file repository and configured to (i) conduct a first search of the digital file repository for digital photographs based on one or more of the user-generated digital tags at a time and (ii) retrieve such digital photographs from the digital file repository; and a user interface coupled to the digital file repository, the digital tagging system and the sorting system to display the digital tagging system, the sorting system and the retrieved digital photographs to a user, and to enable the user to input digital photographs to the digital file repository, and to assign one or more of the user-generated digital tags to selected digital photographs stored in the digital file repository, the user interface being configured to receive a user input to display thereon one or more of the digital photographs stored in the file repository in a plurality of views including a gallery view, an album view, a location view, a people view, a people profile view, a family tree view, and a timeline view; and wherein in response to the user interface receiving the user input to display, the sorting system retrieves digital photographs from the file repository and auto-populates the user interface based on one or more of the user-generated digital tags such that the retrieved digital photographs are displayed on the user interface along with a portion of the assigned user-generated digital tags associated with each of the displayed digital photographs retrieved from the digital file repository, the displayed digital photographs being displayed in the people view, the portion of the assigned user-generated digital tags including some, but not all, of the user-generated digital tags associated with each of the displayed digital photographs, wherein in response to the user clicking on a first digital photograph of a first person displayed in the people view, the sorting system auto-populates the user interface with a people profile view for the first person including (i) a profile picture of the first person, (ii) birth information for the first person, (iii) family relationships for the first person, and (iv) one or more clickable links to other ones of the plurality of views that include one or more digital photographs of the first person; in response to the user clicking on a displayed number of digital photographs associated with the first person displayed in the people view, the sorting system auto-populates the user interface with all of the digital photographs in the digital file repository associated with the first person, and wherein the digital photographs including the embedded user-generated digital tags can be exported from the web-based proprietary digital photograph storage and sharing system in the exchangeable image file format (EXIF) and transferred to a different web-based digital photograph storage and sharing system without losing the user-generated digital tags, so that the transferred digital photographs can be viewed in the different web-based digital photograph storage and sharing system along with the transferred user-generated digital tags.