Granted Patent B1

US 7,082,427 · App. 09/865,805 · Granted Jul 25, 2006

Abstract

Claims (31)

1. A text indexing system that permits an application service provider to provide data identifying prospective customers of a product or service provided by a product/service provider, comprising:

a data acquisition process for extracting text documents from unstructured Internet discussion sites selected from the group of: newsgroups, discussion forums, and mailing lists;

wherein the data acquisition process operates by intruding into the Internet discussion site independently of, and without activation by the participants of the discussion site;

wherein each discussion site comprises a collection of text documents generated by participants of the text sources and simultaneously received by multiple participants of the discussion site;

an archive database for storing the extracted text documents;

a text indexing server for receiving queries from the product/service provider, each query representing a request for information about participants who are prospective customers of the product or service;

wherein the text indexing server is further operable to index the archive database such that each document is indexed by keyword data representing the content of the documents and by contact data associated with the participant who generated the document;

wherein the text indexing server responds to each query by accessing the archive database;

wherein the text indexing server is further operable to perform keyword searches of the archive database in response to the queries, and to provide the product/service provider with at least one link to a document stored in the database that contains contact information for a prospective customer who is discussing the product or service and at least one item of contact data for the prospective customer;

wherein the text indexing server is further operable to perform contact data searches of the archive database in response to the queries, and to provide the product/server provider with a list of documents associated with a specified contact;

a web server for providing access to the text indexing server via a web browser and the Internet, such that the product/service provider may interact with the text indexing server to make the requests online via the Internet and to receive the outputs generated by the text indexing server;

wherein the at least one link enables the product/service provider to access a text document from the database via the web browser.

2. The text indexing system of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the text files are items of digitally recorded correspondence.

3. The text indexing system of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the text files are digital voice records.

4. The text indexing system of claim 1 , wherein the data acquisition process is implemented with a web crawler.

5. The text indexing system of claim 1 , further comprising a user profiles database, and wherein the mining server further accesses the user profiles database for use in formulating queries.

6. The text indexing system of claim 1 , wherein the data acquisition process further accesses Internet voice to text files.

7. A text indexing method performed by an information service provider of providing data identifying prospective customers of a product or service provided by the product/service provider, comprising the steps of:

identifying at least one Internet discussion site selected from the group of: newsgroups, discussion forums and mailing lists;

wherein the discussion site comprises a collection of text documents generated by participants of the discussion site and simultaneously received by multiple participants of the discussion site;

storing extracted text documents in an archive database;

receiving a query from the product/service provider, via a web browser and a text indexing server, the query representing a subject of discussion by participants of the discussion site;

using a text indexing server to index the archive database such that each document is indexed by content keyword data and by contact data associated with the participant who generated the document;

wherein the text indexing server is further used to receive queries from the product/service provider, each query representing a request for information about participants who are prospective customers of the product or service, and to respond to each query by accessing the archive database;

wherein the text indexing server may respond to a query with a content search of the archive database, and provide the product/service provider with a link to at least one document stored in the database that contains contact information for a prospective customer who is discussing the product or service and at least one item of contact information for the prospective customer;

wherein the text indexing server may alternatively respond to a query with a contact data search of the archive data, and provide the product/server provider with a list of text documents associated with a specified contact person;

delivering to the product/service provider, via a web browser, a query response to the product/service provider, the query response containing a description of the text source and a link to the document.

8. The text indexing method of claim 7 , wherein at least some of the text files are items of digitally recorded correspondence.

9. The text indexing method of claim 7 , wherein at least some of the text files are digital voice records.

10. The text indexing method of claim 7 , wherein the data acquisition process is implemented with a web crawler.

11. The text indexing method of claim 7 , further comprising the steps of storing user profiles in a user profiles database, and of accessing the user profiles database during the step of formulating queries.

Assignments (19)