Patent Document ID: 8676784
Application ID: 13544722

Base Claim:
1. A search engine operating with a processor and configured with: a first relevancy determination stage that includes a textual matching ranking feature, a social distance ranking feature, and a levels to the top (LTT) ranking feature to identify a number of preliminary search results, wherein the LTT ranking feature is used to generate a weight adjusting multiplier that uses a transformation operation comprising an inverse rational transformation to generate the weight adjusting multiplier; and, a second relevancy determination stage that includes a proximity ranking feature that operates on the number of preliminary search results, wherein the proximity ranking feature is used to determine weights to adjust relevancy scores of the preliminary search results and the search engine is further configured during the second relevancy determination stage to identify relevant individuals based in part on the inverse rational transformation operation associated with the LTT ranking feature and a transformation operation associated with the proximity ranking feature.

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Claim 8:
8. The search engine of claim 1 further configured to use the social distance ranking feature to adjust ranking weights of relevant individuals including using a first applied weight for a first level colleague and a second applied weight for a second level colleague.