Patent ID: 7992215

Claim:
An annotation system configured to record, store, and retrieve media data comprising: a first device capable of capturing or serving media, the first device comprising first hardware and first software for controlling the first hardware to perform the following steps: capturing or selecting media data in response to a user command; associating a media identifier (ID) with the media data, wherein the media ID is a globally unique value within the annotation system; providing the media ID for purposes of retrieval; associating at least a media classification attribute value with the media data wherein the media classification attribute value comprises information corresponding to a hierarchical, multi-tier classification, the multi-tier classification being descriptive of the media data and comprising classification data comprising a category attribute value, a context attribute value, and a keyword attribute value; encoding the classification data into a knowledge attribute data that is a pseudo-unique number; storing a knowledge object, the knowledge object comprising a representation of the media data and the knowledge attribute data; accepting the media ID from a media retrieval device; transferring information represented in the knowledge object to the media retrieval device in response to receiving the media ID from the media retrieval device; accepting a media classification query from the media retrieval device, the media classification query comprising at least a query value wherein the query value comprises information corresponding to a hierarchical, multi-tier classification that is descriptive of the requested media data and that comprises classification data encoding a category search parameter, a context search parameter, and a keyword search parameter; and forwarding information represented in the knowledge object to the media retrieval device in response to the knowledge attribute data matching the accepted media classification query value.