Patent ID: 8140512

Claim:
A method for consolidating information retrieval results from one or more databases, the method comprising: retrieving, at the computer system, a first result set in response to a query, the query having one or more search terms, and each result in the first result set having a plurality of data elements; ranking, at the computer system, each result in the first result set based on a match of the one or more search terms in the query to a first subset of the plurality of data elements in each result; comparing, at the computer system, for each result in the first result set, the one or more search terms in the query to a second subset of the plurality of data elements to create a value for the result, the value indicating a relevance of the result in relation to the query; creating, at the computer system, a second result set from results in the first result set having a value at or above a minimum threshold value, wherein the second result set comprises a subset of the first result set; consolidating the second result set by: determining, at a confidence level at or above a threshold confidence level, that at least two results in the second result set include information about the same entity or topic, creating a consolidated result including information from the at least two results, and removing duplicative information included within the consolidated result; and displaying, at a display device, the consolidated result.