Patent ID: 7552139

Claim:
A method of organizing a plurality of objects, comprising the steps of: receiving user selections of multiple objects from the plurality of objects; creating one or more groups of objects from the multiple objects; for each of the one or more groups of objects: assigning a set of property names to each of the objects in the group, for properties associated with objects in the group, and each object having the same set of property names; for each object in the group, assigning property values to the object for the property names, the property values determined from the object content; assigning a unique hidden property value for the group to each of the objects in the group; automatically designating a representative object for each of the groups of objects; searching the plurality of objects using a search parameter, and for the plurality of objects that meet the search parameter and that are part of one or more groups, returning the representative objects of groups of which any of the plurality of objects that meet the search parameter are members, such that the object is part of a particular one of the one or more groups, if the object was assigned the particular group's hidden property value; and for particular ones of the plurality of objects that meet the search parameter and that are not part of one or more groups, returning the particular objects, such that object is not part of the one or more groups if the object was not assigned any of the one or more groups' hidden property values; displaying the returned representative objects of the groups of objects, the returned representative objects improving organization of objects and saving display space; and displaying the particular objects.