Patent ID: 7039635

Claim:
A method for efficiently accessing search results in response to input of text characters into a computing device, comprising the steps of: (a) enabling a user to input text characters indicative of a search topic for which search results are desired; (b) determining lists of proposed search strategies and proposed quick matches and populating a display with at least one of the lists based on the text characters that are input, each list with which the display is populated being dynamically updated as successive text characters are input, so that the list of proposed search strategies and the list of proposed quick matches change to correspond to the text characters that have been input, key words included in each list beginning with said text characters; (c) if a list of proposed search strategies is used to populate the display, then: (i) breaking the text characters input by the user into parts of speech and tokens; (ii) finding a match between data types, aliases, and tokens of data available to be searched and the parts of speech and tokens of the text characters input by the user; and (iii) creating a search strategy corresponding to the match for inclusion in the list of proposed search strategies; (d) if at least said one of the list of proposed search strategies and the list of proposed quick matches is displayed, enabling the user to make a selection from at least said one thereof that appears most likely to provide the search results desired; and (e) displaying search results from the selection made by the user.