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United States Patent(10) Patent No.:Nayfeh(45) Date of Patent:(54)

NATURAL LANGUAGE SEARCH FOR
AUDIENCE(75)

Inventor:(73)

Assignee: AudienceScience Inc., Bellevue, WA
(US)

( *)

Notice:Basem Nayfeh, Mercer Island, WA (US)

Subject to any disclaimer, the term ofthis
patent is extended or adjusted under 35
U.S.C. 154(b) by O days.

(21)

Appl. No.: 12/410,418(22)

Filed:

7/20006/20017/20019/20019/2001
11/200111/2001
3/2002
11/20022/2004

6,085,229 A
6,247,021 Bl
6,266,649 Bl
6,285,987 Bl
6,292,796 Bl
6,317,761 Bl
6,324,519 Bl
6,356,879 B2
6,487,538 Bl
6,692,796 B2

US 8,380,745 Bl
Feb.19,2013
Newman et al.
Hinunel et al.
Linden et al.
Roth et al.
Drucker et al.
Landsman et al.
Eldering
Aggarwal et al.
Gupta et al.
Ichinose et al.

(Continued)
FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS
EPJP

1026610 A2
2000228704 A

Mar. 24, 2009

8/20008/2000(Continued)
OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Related U.S. Application Data

(63)Continuation of application No. 10/968,863, filed onOct. 18, 2004, now abandoned, which is a continuationof application No. 10/733,815, filed on Dec. 10, 2003,
now abandoned.

All you wanted to know about online advertising (and were afraid toask)(sic). "The Cost of Advertising on Web," www.cs.northwestem.
edu/-paritosh/links/online.html, Feb. 18, 2000, Accessed Jul. 25,2005.

(60)

Provisional application No. 60/520,141, filed on Nov.
13, 2003.

(Continued)(51)

Int. Cl.
G06F 7100(2006.01)
U.S. Cl. ....................................................... 707/783
Field of Classification Search .................. 707/736,
707/748, 751,783,784,785,786,787,789
See application file for complete search history.

(52)
(58)

(56)

References Cited

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web server comtcr

stem

Primary Examiner - Robert Beausoliel, Jr.
Assistant Examiner - Nirav K Khakhar(74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm - Perkins Coie LLP(57)

ABSTRACTA facility for defining a group of people is described. The
facility provides a visual user interface containing a control
for receiving a query string. The facility receives a querystring via the control, and uses an index on a body of documents to identify documents of the body that satisfy thereceived query string. The facility accesses a record indicating which documents of the body were accessed by each of a
population of people during a foregoing time period to identify people among the population that accessed at least athreshold number of the identified documents during the foregoing time period. The facility displays within the visual userinterface, in conjunction with the control, information characterizing the people identified.
20 Claims, 7 Drawing Sheets

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