Patent ID: 8364749

Claim:
A collaborative tagging system for resources, comprising: a first client, comprising: a storage unit, comprising a first resource; and a feature extraction module, extracting at least one first resource characteristic of the first resource, and outputting the first resource characteristic of the first resource, wherein the first resource characteristic comprises at least a first tag; a second client, comprising: a storage unit, comprising a second resource; and a feature extraction module, extracting at least one second resource characteristic of the second resource, and outputting the second resource characteristic of the second resource wherein the second resource characteristic comprises at least a second tag; and a tagging index server coupled to the first client and the second client via a network, receiving the first resource characteristic of the first resource from the first client, receiving the second resource characteristic of the second resource from the second client, performing a non-content based comparison according to the first resource characteristic and the second resource characteristic, wherein the non-content based comparison compares a file property of the first resource and the second resource, when the file property of the first resource conforms to that of the second resource, performing a content based comparison according to the first resource characteristic and the second resource characteristic, and determining establishment of an association between the first tag and the second tag according to a result of the content based comparison, wherein when the tagging index server receives a query for the first tag or the second tag, the tagging index server simultaneously locates the first resource of the first client and the second resource of the second client according to the association between the first tag and the second tag.