Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Google Inc.

Jeff Reynar

Jeremy Hylton

Kushal Dave

James Kevin Scott

Ziyi Wang

Michael H Ammerlaan

Oren Eli Zamir

Jeffrey Korn

Paul Alex Broman

Michael Gordon

Eric S Flatt

Brian M Jones

Tuan Huynh

Roger Wolff

Nobuya Higashiyama

Robert Andrew Little

Joe Keng Yap

Vinod Ramachandran Marur

Andriy Bihun

Jason Goldman

Alex Khesin

Eduardo Morales

Kevin Blaine Gjerstad

Devika S Ghaisas

Lee C Hunt

Chris Pratley

Chiaki Tanaka

Jose Luis Montero

A method, system, and graphical user interface for improved web searching via user-specified annotations are disclosed. One aspect of the invention involves a graphical user interface on a computer that includes a ranked set of links responsive to a search request by a user. At least some of the links are to documents that have not previously been annotated by the user and at least some of the links are to documents that have previously been annotated by the user. The graphical user interface also includes one or more corresponding annotations previously created based on the user's input for at least some of the links to documents that have previously been annotated by the user.

Method, system, and graphical user interface for improved search result displays via user-specified annotations

Methods, systems, and graphical user interfaces for improved searching via user specified ratings are disclosed. A rating icon for a document in a group of documents is provided. A user rates the document in the group of documents by performing a selection operation on the rating icon. A user-specific rating for the document is generated based on the user rating. A search request is received from a user. A plurality of documents that satisfy the search request are identified (including a first respective document which not previously been rated by the user but is in the group of documents that included the rated document.) A response to the search request is sent. The response includes instructions to display a ranked set of links to at least some of the documents that satisfy the search request including a link to the first respective document displayed with the user-specific rating.

Searching via user-specified ratings

A method and system are provided for creation, implementation, and use of computer-generated 'smart' documents to which functionality is attached for providing contextually sensitive tools, controls and help content to users of those documents. Portions of documents are annotated with Extensible Markup Language (XML) tags and structure so that when a user enters those portions, such as by placing a computer cursor in those portions, the user is provided contextually sensitive tools, controls and/or help content. A document tools pane may open on the user's computer screen adjacent to the document being edited for providing the document tools, controls or help content related to the context of the text or data in which the cursor is located. If the user moves the cursor to another portion of the document, the user may obtain information associated with the context of the new portion of the document in which the cursor is located.

Providing contextually sensitive tools and help content in computer-generated documents

A method, system, and graphical user interface for improved web searching via user-specified annotations are disclosed. One aspect of the invention involves a computer-implemented method in which a search engine receives a user's ratings of some, but not all, web pages associated with a group of web pages. The group of web pages is selected from the group consisting of web pages in a particular web site and web pages in a particular subunit of a web site. The search engine generates a user-specific site rating for the group of web pages based on the user's ratings for web pages in the group of web pages. The search engine uses the generated site rating for the group of web pages when responding to a search query from the user.

Method and system for generating web site ratings for a user

A method of embedding evaluations in a document is described. An identifier tag is embedded in the document in response to a first user action. The document may include a web page. The identifier tag includes a review and an identifier associated with an entity that is a subject of the review. A rating tag is embedded in the document in response to a second user action. The rating tag includes a rating value corresponding to a user-selected rating of the entity that is the subject of the review. The rating value may be selected from a set of pre-determined rating values.

Embedded review and rating information

A blog search engine may receive a search query. The blog search engine may determine scores for a group of blog documents in response to the search query, where the scores are based on a relevance of the group of blog documents to the search query and a quality of the group of blog documents. The blog search engine may also provide information regarding the group of blog documents based on the determined scores.

Ranking blog documents

A method, system, and graphical user interface for improved web searching via user-specified annotations are disclosed. One aspect of the invention involves a graphical user interface on a computer that includes a ranked set of links responsive to a search request by a user. At least some of the links are to documents that have not previously been rated by the user and at least some of the links are to documents that have previously been rated by the user. The links are displayed in an order that depends at least in part on the ratings of the documents that have previously been rated by the user.

Method, system, and graphical user interface for improved searching via user-specified annotations

Methods and systems are provided for dynamically configuring document solutions and for obtaining desired or required components of such document solutions for use with computer-generated documents. If a document is associated with a document solution, a request for components of the solution is sent to a manifest of document solutions. Identification of a user of the document is also passed to the manifest. At the manifest, identification information for the user is used to query a user database to determine a profile of the user such as the user's job description, location, security clearance, and the like. Based on the user's profile, the document solution is configured dynamically to include solution components most helpful to the particular user. A manifest collection is provided for serving as a repository of document solution location information for many different namespaces (schemas) that may be associated with one or more user documents.

Mechanism for downloading software components from a remote source for use by a local software application

A reputation management system, method and computer readable storage medium assigns reputation scores to various types of entities including, but not limited to people, products, advertisers and merchants. A reputation function is based on a directed graph including the reviewers and the reviews. The nodes in the graph represent the reviewers and the reviews and the links in the graph represent the ratings. The reputation function is iteratively solved until a convergence condition is met. Prior to convergence, when a stability condition is met, the reputation function is modified so as to remove portions of the function corresponding to nodes with negative reputations. Upon convergence, reputation values for at least the reviewers and reviews corresponding to nodes that have not been removed from the reputation function are generated.

Systems and methods for reputation management

Strings are recognized and annotated, or labeled, with a type label by a recognizer plug-in. Application program modules may use the type label and other metadata to provide users with a choice of electronic commerce actions. In addition, the user may be provided with a download Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and download action plug-ins for that type label. An ActionGUID may be used to specify the class ids (CLSIDs) of the action plug-ins that may provide actions for a particular semantic category type label. Each DLL has a class id (CLSID), which is a GUID. The ActionGUID is a GUID that is specified by the recognizer plug-in and which corresponds to the CLSID(s) of the only action plug-ins that should be permitted to provide actions for the semantic category type label provided by the recognizer plug-in.

Method and system for providing restricted actions for recognized semantic categories

A method and system for applying input mode bias is disclosed. A schema is applied to an input field of an electronic document. The schema is associated with a grammar that defines the set of acceptable strings that may be input into the input field. When text is input into the input field, the schema is determined and the associated grammar is determined. The grammar is then sent to the input method. Based on the grammar, the input method may determine what text the user is trying to enter. The grammar may also be used to apply semantic categories to text input into a document. After the text is entered it is compared to a grammar. If the entered text matches the form of the grammar, then the schema is applied to the text as a semantic category.

Method and system for applying input mode bias

A method for recognizing strings and annotating, or labeling, the strings with a type label. After the strings are annotated with a type label, application program modules may use the type label to provide users with a choice of actions. If the user's computer does not have any actions associated with a type label, the user may be provided with the option to surf to a download Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and download action plug-ins for that type label. One or more recognizer plug-ins perform the recognition of particular strings in an electronic document. The recognizer plug-ins may be packaged with an application program module or they may be written by third parties to recognize particular strings that are of interest. One or more action plug-ins provide possible actions to be presented to the user based upon the type label associated with the string.

Method and system for semantically labeling strings and providing actions based on semantically labeled strings

A system may receive a feed associated with a blog. The system may extract information from the feed and the blog and create a hybrid document based on the extracted information. The system may further use the hybrid document to determine a relevance of the blog to a search query.

Indexing and retrieval of blogs

Markup language data applied to text or data is leveraged for providing helpful actions on certain types of text or data such as names, addresses, etc. Selected portions of text or data entered into a document and any associated markup language data are passed to an action dynamically linked library (DLL) for obtaining actions associated with markup language elements applied to the text or data. The text or data may be passed to a recognizer DLL for recognition of certain data types. The recognizer DLL utilizes markup language data associated with the text or data to assist recognition and labeling of text or data. After all applicable text and/or data is recognized and labeled, an action DLL is called for actions associated with the labeled text or data.

Leveraging markup language data for semantically labeling text strings and data and for providing actions based on semantically labeled text strings and data

An XML (eXtensible Markup Language) schema to define a list of terms to be recognized as semantic categories is disclosed. Using an instance of the XML schema, a user may easily define terms to be recognized as semantic categories without having to compile a complete recognizer plug-in. The XML schema may be written using any editing tool or XML schema editing tool to create an instance of the schema. An instance of the semantic category list schema is also referred to as a semantic category list file. Typically, the user completes all of the properties of the XML schema and specifies the list of terms to recognize directly in the XML schema. In addition to specifying terms directly in the XML schema, the user may use a binary representation of the list of terms because of size constraints. The user may also define actions in the semantic category list file.

Growing community of inventors

Woodinville, WA, United States of America

Jeff Reynar