Obviousness

The obviousness of US patent 7930287 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 can be analyzed by considering combinations of prior art references that would have motivated a person having ordinary skill in the art (POSA) to combine them to achieve the claimed invention. The core innovation of US7930287 lies in an intermediary search service that iteratively interacts with a user to refine a search purpose through a sequence of clarifying questions, generates search criteria from this refined purpose, submits these criteria to one or more standard search engines, and then collects and potentially processes the results.

The priority date for US7930287 is March 14, 2008.

Relevant Prior Art References and Their Teachings:

1. US20060271524A1 (Tanne): Tanne teaches "methods of and systems for searching by incorporating user-entered information". Specifically, a search query is obtained from a user and then "augmented with additional information which is supplied by the user in response to a prompt". The prompt "may include a request for information about a previously entered search term or criteria" and can include "predefined questions". The augmented search query is then "forwarded to a search engine". Tanne also describes "processing the search results to enhance a relevancy ranking of the search results".

2. US6947930B2 (Overture Services, Inc.): This patent describes "systems and methods for interactive search query refinement". It allows a user to enter an initial query and receive results, including "one or more secondary result sets from which the user can interactively select to dynamically refine the initial query". This demonstrates an iterative process of refinement based on user interaction.

3. US20020059201A1 (Work James Duncan): Work teaches a method for searching by "sending the search request to multiple search engines over the Internet". This reference establishes the concept of using multiple search engines.

4. US20050278317A1 (Gross): Gross describes a "personalized search engine that automatically modifies search results to be more relevant to a particular user... by analyzing user history data". This teaches personalizing and re-ranking results based on user profiles or history.

5. US20070174279A1 (Jatowt): Jatowt presents a "page re-ranking system and re-ranking program to improve search result" by associating a re-ranking value based on "user context". This reinforces the concept of re-ranking results to improve relevancy.

Obviousness Analysis and Motivation to Combine:

The independent claims of US7930287 (Claims 1, 10, 26, 28, 31) are largely directed to an intermediary system and method that provides an interactive interface for refining a user's search query through iterative interaction involving at least two clarifying questions and answers, then using this refined query to search one or more standard search engines, and finally processing the collected results.

A person having ordinary skill in the art (POSA) at the time of the invention would have been motivated to combine these known elements to create a more effective and user-friendly search experience, directly addressing the difficulties acknowledged in the background art of US7930287 regarding users' inability to formulate effective search criteria and the challenge of returning relevant results from conventional search engines.

1. Initial Query and Iterative Refinement (Claims 1, 10, 26, 28, 31):

   • Tanne (US20060271524A1) directly teaches receiving an initial search query and augmenting it with "additional information... supplied by the user in response to a prompt". These prompts are described as "requests for information about a previously entered search term or criteria" and can be "predefined questions". This fundamentally covers the interactive process of presenting clarifying questions and receiving answers to develop search criteria.
   • While Tanne specifies "at least one prompt", extending this to a sequence of "at least one first clarifying question... and... at least one second clarifying question" as recited in the claims, would be a straightforward design choice for a POSA seeking to achieve a more thorough and precise understanding of a user's complex search purpose. The patent itself highlights the need for a "substantially richer and more detailed service". If a single prompt or clarification is insufficient to determine the user's intent (as illustrated by the Lincoln assassination example in the patent's description), it would be an obvious next step to present further clarifying questions in an iterative manner.
   • Overture (US6947930B2) further reinforces the concept of iterative query refinement through user interaction, where users "interactively select to dynamically refine the initial query". A POSA would recognize that both explicit textual prompts (Tanne) and interactive selection from presented options (Overture) are means for iteratively refining a search query based on user feedback.

2. Developing Search Criteria and Submitting to Standard Search Engines (Claims 1, 10, 31):

   • Once the search purpose is refined through iterative interaction (as taught by Tanne and Overture), Tanne (US20060271524A1) explicitly teaches that the "augmented search query is then forwarded to a search engine". This covers the development of search criteria and submission to a search engine.
   • The claims specify "one or more search engines." The concept of submitting a search query to multiple search engines to gather a broader set of results was well-known in the art, as evidenced by Work (US20020059201A1), which describes "sending the search request to multiple search engines".
   • Motivation to combine: A POSA would be motivated to combine the query refinement techniques of Tanne/Overture with the multi-engine search capability of Work to provide a comprehensive service. If the goal is to offer a "greatly enhanced search capability" and a "substantially richer and more detailed service" (as per US7930287's stated purpose), then gathering results from multiple sources after a precise query formulation would be an obvious and desirable outcome.

3. Collecting and Processing Search Results (Claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 31):

   • The collection of search results is inherent in any search system.
   • The processing of results, including re-ranking, selecting subsets, or preparing reports, is also explicitly taught in the prior art. Tanne (US20060271524A1) teaches "processing the search results to enhance a relevancy ranking". Gross (US20050278317A1) teaches automatically modifying search results for relevancy by "analyzing user history data", which supports the re-ranking aspects of claims 6 and 14 that use search history or profiles. Jatowt (US20070174279A1) also teaches re-ranking based on "user context".
   • Motivation to combine: After collecting results from one or more standard search engines (Work), it would be obvious to a POSA to apply known processing and re-ranking techniques (Tanne, Gross, Jatowt) to improve the quality, organization, and relevance of the presented results, especially for a system designed to act as an intermediary to deliver a "comprehensive search report".

Conclusion:

The combination of Tanne (US20060271524A1) for iterative query refinement using prompts, augmented by the multi-engine search capabilities of Work (US20020059201A1), and further enhanced by the result processing and re-ranking techniques of Tanne (US20060271524A1), Gross (US20050278317A1), and Jatowt (US20070174279A1), would render the claims of US7930287 obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine these elements would stem from the recognized need to overcome the limitations of conventional search engines by providing a more guided, precise, and comprehensive search experience. The specific recitation of "at least one first clarifying question... and... at least one second clarifying question" is merely a routine implementation or an obvious extension of Tanne's teaching of "at least one user-presented prompt" to further refine a user's search intent in an iterative process.