Patent Document ID: 7502774
Application ID: 11008793

Base Claim:
1. A method for managing federated search results in a heterogeneous environment comprising: receiving a user-entered search term and submitting the search term to multiple selected search engines; gathering search results from each of the selected search engines; generating a search ring including a respective ring section to represent search results from each respective one of the selected search engines for enabling the user to view search results from the selected search engines; and generating a plurality of concentric circles within the generated search ring to indicate priority statistics for each of the selected search engines including a pair of inner concentric circles indicating set numbers of user selected prioritized results, and an outer ring including a number of returns from each of the selected search engines; and generating a user-selected control within each said concentric circle portion of each said ring section; each said generated user-selected control for selecting search results to be returned for each of the selected search engines.

---

Claim 2:
2. A method for managing federated search results as recited in claim 1 wherein the step of gathering search results from each of the selected search engines includes the steps of gathering search statistics from each of the selected search engines.