Patent ID: 8239358

Claim:
A method for searching multiple documents on a computer system, the method comprising steps for: sending a query to a system core where said query is passed to a search component for searching the documents, said system core in turn receiving results from said search component indicating related documents to said query and passing to a summarization component a specified number of said results where said summarization component processes related documents corresponding to said specified number of results to produce a multi-document summary comprising a digest, on a topic specified by said query, produced by analyzing syntax and semantics of said related documents, extracting sentences and text fragments of said related documents where each of said sentences and text fragments further comprises an attached reference link to at least one related document from which each has been extracted, and combining said sentences and text fragments with their attached reference links into said digest, said system core receiving said multi-document summary from said summarization component; receiving from said system core said multi-document summary for display as a product of said query; steps for displaying said multi-document summary; steps for receiving from said system core said results from said search component and displaying said results in addition to displaying said multi-document summary; steps for extracting and displaying semantic concepts to a user; and steps for enabling the user to use the presentation by the displaying steps to refine the query, to navigate to certain parts of said multi-document summary, to view a one of said related documents by choosing a one of said attached reference links in said direst, to view a one of said related documents by choosing a one of said results from said search component, to request another multi-document summary, to exclude one or more sentence fragments from said requested another multi-document summary, to exclude one or more related documents from said requested another multi-document summary, to include one or more related documents excluded in said specified number of said results, to choose a display preference for said attached reference links, to modify or regroup the contents of said multi-document summary, and to save the currently displayed multi-document summary and to rate said multi-document summary feedback to said system core.