Patent ID: 7237191

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of specifying a search criteria for use by a search engine that searches among a plurality of self-describing, structured documents, said documents including document fields, the method including: providing a graphical user interface including a document type selection filter; at least one document field selection filter, context sensitive to a selected document type; at least one value specification field, context sensitive to a selected document field; and as non-displaying fields, one or more path specifications corresponding to the document fields and to the value specification fields, said path specification identifying at least one node to be tested against the completed value specification; receiving a selected document type, a completed value specification and a corresponding path specification; and sending a search criteria to a search engine that searches the self-describing, structured documents based on the completed value specification and the corresponding path specification, including documents of the selected document type; wherein the self-describing, structured documents are XML documents.