Patent ID: 7672963

Claim:
A method of accessing data within a research system by an application external to an electronic system comprising: a. formatting a searchable database within the research system into a directory tree structure, wherein the directory tree structure includes nodes comprising related data and branches comprising links between the nodes, wherein each related item of data is categorized by a navigation path through the directory tree structure and by one or more parameters, each parameter is set with a corresponding value associated with the data item thereby forming a set parameter, wherein the parameters are specific to the node in which the related data is included; and b. an external application different than the research system accessing one or more nodes within the directory tree structure and obtaining data from the one or more nodes by utilizing an applications programming interface (API) associated with the research system, wherein accessing the one or more nodes is performed utilizing a research module, further wherein the research module includes a plurality of search implementations, and further wherein each utilization of the research module includes usability of each search at any location within the searchable database.