Patent Document ID: 9081819
Application ID: 13671523
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. One or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause: storing bonds that reflect relationships between searchable items; wherein the bonds are not stored as part of the searchable items; wherein the bonds do not reflect storage location relationships between the searchable items; receiving a search request to perform a search to find items from among the searchable items that match search criteria of the search request; providing a search mechanism that enables a user to pick any searchable item, from among multiple of the searchable items, as a starting point of the search; receiving through the search mechanism, user input that selects a particular searchable item, from among the multiple searchable items, to be the starting point of the search; responding to said search request and to the user input that selects the particular searchable item by performing the search using the particular searchable item as the starting point for said search, wherein performing the search includes at least one of: (a) determining whether one or more attributes of a particular bond satisfy one or more criteria and ceasing to search down a traversal path that extends from the particular bond if the one or more attributes of the particular bond do not satisfy the one or more criteria, the search down the traversal path ceasing even when one or more of the searchable items that extend past the particular bond satisfy search criteria of the search request; (b) searching only those searchable items that are within a particular degree of separation of the particular searchable item, wherein the degree of separation between each of the searchable items and the particular searchable item is based on how many bonds must be traversed to arrive at said each of the searchable items from the particular searchable item; (c) determining an order in which each of a plurality of searchable items is compared against the search criteria of said search request based on the degree of separation of each of the plurality of searchable items from the particular searchable item, wherein the degree of separation between the particular searchable item and each searchable item of the plurality of searchable items is based on how many bonds must be traversed to arrive at said each searchable item from the particular searchable item; or (d) ranking a second plurality of searchable items that satisfy said search criteria based, at least in part, on the degree of separation between each searchable item of the second plurality of searchable items and the particular searchable item, wherein the degree of separation between the particular searchable item and each searchable item of the second plurality of searchable items is based on how many bonds must be traversed to arrive at said each searchable item from the particular searchable item.