Patent Document ID: 9424233
Application ID: 13667400

Base Claim:
1. A method of inferring user intent in a search input based on resolving ambiguous portions of the search input, the method comprising: providing access to a set of content items, each of the content items being associated with metadata that describes the corresponding content item, the metadata associated with the content items including a mapping of relationships between entities associated with the content items; receiving search input from a user, the search input being intended by the user to identify at least one desired content item, wherein the search input comprises: a first portion comprising at least one specified entity, and a second portion comprising a reference to at least one unspecified entity related to the at least one desired content item, wherein the at least one unspecified entity of the second portion and the at least one specified entity of the first portion are different; without further user input: inferring a possible meaning for the at least one unspecified entity of the second portion based on the at least one specified entity and the mapping of relationships between entities; based on the inferred possible meaning for the at least one unspecified entity, the at least one specified entity, and the metadata associated with the content items of the set of content items, selecting at least one common content item from the set of content items, wherein the at least one common content item is related to each of the at least one specified entity and the at least one unspecified entity in the mapping of relationships; and presenting the selected at least one common content item to the user in response to the search input received from the user.

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Claim 3:
3. The method of claim 1 , the content items including electronic mail items and the metadata including at least one of electronic mail threads, contacts, senders, recipients, company names, business departments, business units, electronic mail folders, and office location information.