Patent · US Expired

Using multiple search engines to search multimedia data

US5873080A · kind A · utility

346Cited by
3References
11Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMar 26, 1997
Grant dateFeb 16, 1999
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 26, 2017

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
  • CPC primaryY10S707/99945
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A query comprising of sub queries, each of which could be of different media types are used to search a collection of multimedia documents in a database. These sub queries are parsed according to media type and operators/functions between these sub queries are recorded creating a set of query objects and query operator objects. The query interface than passes the query objects to the appropriate application programming interfaces (API's) of the various search engines. Furthermore, it applies the query object operators to the respective interim results obtained by executing a query object. Then the interim results are combined in a global result object that is processed using a user specification to produce a single combined result list that conforms to user specified requirements.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.