Patent ID: 8631439

Claim:
A method, comprising: associating a descriptor with time elements, each of the time elements referencing a separate and corresponding instantiation of a content item within a content file, the content item indicative of a media representation of the descriptor, and the content file comprising a program, wherein the descriptor characterizes the content item in the content file, the descriptor specifying a relationship between two descriptors; storing the descriptor and the time elements in a database; providing a search window on a display screen of a content viewing device, the search window overlaying a presentation of the content file; receiving the descriptor from a user at the content viewing device, the descriptor being a text string received via the search window; retrieving, from the database, the descriptor and the time elements; applying a reference tag that identifies the descriptor from the user to locations on a navigational search structure associated with the content file, the locations determined by corresponding time elements; displaying only the reference tag corresponding to the descriptor from the user on the navigational search structure at the content viewing device; searching for content during playback of the content file based upon matching a search term with a term identified in the reference tag; and storing results of the searching, and communicating the results to another content viewing device; wherein the descriptor is identified in the content file via filtering a closed captioning file associated with the content file and the descriptor is classified using an indexing scheme.