Patent ID: 8775433

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for automatically generating an index in a database system, the method comprising the steps of: receiving raw data that includes human directed information; processing the raw data into a standardized format of a first form to produce standardized data, wherein the standardized format of the first form comprises at least one of a standardized attribute or standardized attribute value corresponding to the raw data and includes information about a plurality of standardized attributes having a hierarchical structure; generating a plurality of identifiers for the standardized data based on an attribute or attribute value of the raw data, wherein the plurality of identifiers are in a second form different than the first form, and wherein the plurality of identifiers encode the hierarchical structure of the plurality of attributes of the standardized data in the first form; storing the plurality of identifiers and the standardized data in a data storage structure, wherein the standardized data in the first form is indexed with respect to the plurality of identifiers in the second form, and wherein the identifiers in the second form occupy less memory of the data storage structure than would the corresponding standardized data in the first form to which the identifier is indexed; and performing a search of one of a database and a network using said plurality of identifiers to locate a subset of said standardized data, said performing a search comprising: receiving raw search data from a searching entity; processing the raw search data into standardized search data that includes information about an attribute or attribute value; retrieving the subset of the standardized data using the plurality of identifiers; and providing a representation of the subset of the standardized data to said searching entity.