Patent ID: 7340458

Claim:
A method of searching multimedia information in a repository described by descriptors using a query multimedia information item, comprising executing operations in a data processing device, the operations comprising acts of: acquiring meta-descriptors of repository descriptors; selecting query multimedia information; extracting at least one query descriptor from the query multimedia information based on the meta-descriptors; comparing the query descriptor with the repository descriptors; ranking at least some of the multimedia information in the repository in accordance with the comparing act; and providing an output indicating the ranking, wherein the repository descriptors are instances of a plurality of different descriptor types, and where the act of extracting at least one descriptor from the query multimedia information comprises extracting a plurality of descriptors based on the meta-descriptors to obtain a plurality of query descriptors, the query descriptors being respective instances of the descriptor types; and the comparing act comprises comparing the query descriptors with respective repository descriptors having same descriptor types.