Patent ID: 7054882

Claim:
A method for improving a text search comprising the steps of: (a) preprocessing a plurality of documents, including performing relationship mining that provides a network of document relationships for the documents and relationship metadata, wherein a relevance ranking is determined during the preprocessing; (b) receiving an identification from a user of at least one candidate document from a first plurality of documents obtained via a text search query provided by the user, the text search query using the preprocessed documents, wherein the step (a) of preprocessing is performed before the first plurality of documents are obtained via the text search query; (c) locating a second plurality of documents that are related to the at least one candidate document by the relationship metadata, wherein the network of document relationships is used to locate the second plurality of documents; and (d) providing a third plurality of documents to the user as search results to the text search query, each of the third plurality of documents being provided based upon the at least one candidate document and the number of relationships it has with the first and second plurality of documents, wherein the network of document relationships and the relevance ranking are used to provide the third plurality of documents.