Patent Document ID: 8019752
Application ID: 11271036

Base Claim:
1. A computer program product, residing on a computer-readable medium, for use in navigating through information associated with a plurality of objects, the computer program product comprising instructions for causing a computer to: access a stored plurality of objects, wherein each of the stored plurality of objects comprises an object identifier and a set of attribute-value pairs that characterize the object, wherein each value of the set of attribute-value pairs describes its respective object, and wherein at least one of the set of the attribute-value pairs includes a reference that identifies at least one respective relationship to another object of the stored plurality of objects, wherein the reference is stored as a value of the at least one of the set of the attribute-value pairs, wherein the another object is one of the stored plurality of objects, and the another object comprises a respective object identifier and a set of attribute-value pairs that characterize the another object, at least one of the set of attribute-value pairs including a reference that identifies at least one respective relationship to an object of the stored plurality of objects wherein the reference is stored as a value of the at least one of the set of the attribute-value pairs; compute a first navigation state in response to a first query, the first navigation state corresponding to a first set of objects from the stored plurality of objects, wherein each object of the first set of objects includes the attribute-value pairs that characterize the object and the at least one respective relationship; define, a first subset of objects from the first set of objects, wherein at least one object in the first subset includes the reference that identifies the at least one respective relationship to one or more objects in a second set of objects, wherein each object of the second set of objects includes the attribute-value pairs that characterize the object and the at least one respective relationship, and wherein at least one object in the second set of objects is distinct from the first subset of objects; access, responsive to a user request to determine at least one possible refinement to the first navigation state, at least one object in the second set of objects, based on the reference that identifies the at least one respective relationship to another object, and obtain at least one attribute-value pair that characterizes the at least one object in the second set of objects; and present in a user interface, the at least one possible refinement to the first navigation state based on the at least one attribute-value pair that characterizes the at least one object in the second set of objects.

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Claim 5:
5. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the instructions for causing a computer to present at least one possible refinement to the first navigation state include instructions to present a set of possible refinements using profile information regarding a user querying the information associated with the plurality of objects.