The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 20, 2007
Filed:
May. 08, 2003
Shamim Alpha, Pabna, BD;
Paul Dixon, Redwood City, CA (US);
Shamim Alpha, Pabna, BD;
Paul Dixon, Redwood City, CA (US);
Oracle International Corporation, Redwood Shores, CA (US);
Abstract
An efficient information search mechanism provides control over the relaxation of a search query to users that are requesting searches. Through such a mechanism, a user can specify a sequence of sub-queries that is associated with variations of the main search criteria, and specify a progression in which to execute the sub-queries. Hence, users can impart their priorities with respect to search term variations used in relaxing the main search criteria, which further allows the users to impart their notion of the relevance of results that may be returned by particular sub-queries. A query that includes a sequence of sub-queries is received and the sub-queries are executed, if at all, by a database server in an order based on the progression specified by the user. Response time and network loading are improved through reduction of unnecessary work by the database server and through reduction of computationally costly communications between client and server and associated processing.