Patent Document ID: 9760614
Application ID: 14572225

Base Claim:
1. A method, utilizing at least one computing device, comprising: displaying a screen display to a user on a display device, the screen display including (a) a class hierarchy section in which a hierarchy of data classes is displayed and (b) a graphical display area, the data classes corresponding to data stored in a semantic database; receiving data input from the user, the data input indicating user selection of at least two of the data classes from the hierarchy of data classes, the at least two data classes including a first selected data class and a second selected data class; responding to the data input by analyzing class relationships among the at least two selected data classes in the semantic database to generate at least one graphically illustrated path that illustrates a path via the class relationships between the first selected data class and the second selected data class; displaying the at least one graphically illustrated path in the graphical display area; receiving input, from the user, indicative of user interaction with elements of the displayed graphically illustrated path, the user interaction including at least (a) a selection of a plurality of data fields and (b) defining at least one constraint; and automatically generating a database search query in response to the received input indicative of user interaction, the database search query returns at least the selected plurality of data fields and search results in accordance with the defined at least one constraint, wherein the user interaction with the elements of the displayed graphically illustrated path includes selecting class attributes from nodes, representing the selected at least two data classes, of the graphically illustrated path, the selecting class attributes indicates that the selected class attributes are to be returned by the database search query or that the defined at least one constraint is to be applied to the selected class attributes; opening a dialog box on the display device in association with a selected class attribute, the dialog box allows the user to specify the defined at least one constraint to be applied to the selected class attribute; displaying a search box on the display device, the search box receives input data, from the user, to cause highlighting of at least one entry in the displayed class hierarchy; displaying, on the display device, the search results returned in accordance with the database search query; displaying, on the display device, the database search query; allowing the user to apply text editing to the displayed database search query; and displaying, on the display device, prompts suggesting types of constraints to be applied to selected class attributes based on the edited database search query.

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Claim 2:
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the user interaction with the selected one of the displayed paths includes: selecting at least one class attribute for inclusion in the returned search results; and applying the defined at least one constraint to the selected at least one class attribute.