Patent Document ID: 7606798
Application ID: 10748656

Base Claim:
1. A method performed by a server device, comprising: receiving, by a processor of the server device, a query; determining, by the processor, a geographic location associated with the query; determining, by the processor, a topic corresponding to the query; determining, by the processor, a distance adjustment factor associated with the topic; identifying, by the processor, a set of documents based, at least in part, on the query; determining, by the processor, for each document in the set of documents, a topical score based, at least in part, on the query; determining, by the processor, for each document in the set of documents, a measure of distance between a geographic location associated with the document and the geographic location associated with the query; generating, by the processor, for each document in the set of documents, a distance score based, at least in part, on the measure of distance and the distance adjustment factor, where the distance adjustment factor controls an amount that the distance score changes as a function of the measure of distance; and ordering, by the processor, the set of documents as a function of both the topical scores for the set of documents and the distance scores for the set of documents.

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Claim 3:
3. The method of claim 1 , where the topical score is higher for a more relevant one of the documents than a less relevant one of the documents, and the distance score is higher for one of the documents with the geographic location nearer to the geographic location associated with the query than another one of the documents with the geographic location further from the geographic location associated with the query.