Patent ID: 7464182

Claim:
An apparatus for producing a resource descriptor for a particular resource having an associated URI, comprising: a controller for: receiving a query; selecting one or more key words from an index of resources based on a maximum number of times the one or more keywords are referenced; adding the selected key words to the query to form one or more candidate signatures for the particular resource, wherein one of said candidate signatures having a predetermined level of correspondence to the particular resource is identified as a signature for the particular resource, wherein the signature uniquely identifies the URI in a relevant dataset, wherein the signature identifies the URI and a predetermined additional number of related resources, wherein the signature is a query that is used to return the desired resource as a top entry in a search result list of resources, wherein the signature qualifies the resources in the search result list, wherein the signature is used to find other copies of the desired resource and other resources similar to the desired resource, wherein the signature locates the desired resource if the URI does not locate a desired resource; merging the signature with the URI to produce the resource descriptor, wherein the resource descriptor is adapted to be substituted for the URI when addressing the particular resource, wherein the resource descriptor is a reference to a specific resource of a plurality of references distributed over multiple networked computers; and conducting a search to determine whether the resource descriptor is satisfactory, wherein the resource descriptor is satisfactory if the search results in a size that is less than a predetermined number.