Providing Knowledge Panels With Search Results
Patent No. US11836177 (titled "Providing Knowledge Panels With Search Results") was filed by Google Llc on Aug 12, 2021.
What is this patent about?
’177 is related to the field of information retrieval and presentation, specifically enhancing search results with supplementary information. The background involves the challenge of efficiently providing users with relevant information about entities they search for. Traditionally, users had to navigate through multiple search results to gather factual details, which could be time-consuming and inefficient.
The underlying idea behind ’177 is to present a knowledge panel alongside traditional search results, offering a concise summary of information about the entity referenced in the search query. This panel aggregates data from various sources, presenting key facts, images, and related entities in a structured format. The key insight is that by proactively providing this information, users can quickly access essential details without needing to click through numerous search results.
The claims of ’177 focus on a system and method for presenting a search results page that includes both traditional search results and a knowledge panel. The knowledge panel contains an image of the searched entity, a set of facts about the entity, and a set of images representing a type of content for the entity. Each image in the set is an interactive element that allows the user to request additional content for the respective entity.
In practice, when a user submits a query, the system identifies the entity being searched for and retrieves relevant information from various sources. A knowledge panel template is selected based on the entity type (e.g., person, place, movie). The template is then populated with content items such as a title, image, description, and facts. The knowledge panel is displayed alongside the search results, providing a quick overview of the entity and links to related information.
This approach differs from prior solutions by proactively presenting a curated summary of information rather than relying solely on users navigating through search results. The use of a knowledge panel template allows for a consistent user interface across different entity types. Furthermore, the inclusion of interactive elements within the knowledge panel enables users to explore related entities and content directly from the search results page, improving the overall search experience and reducing the time required to find relevant information. The aggregation of content from disparate sources into a single panel is also a key differentiator.
How does this patent fit in bigger picture?
Technical landscape at the time
In the early 2010s when ’177 was filed, search systems commonly relied on returning ranked lists of links to resources in response to user queries. At a time when X was typically implemented using Y, the presentation of supplemental information, such as factual data about entities referenced in search queries, was often limited or required users to navigate to external resources. When hardware or software constraints made B non-trivial, efficiently integrating and displaying content from multiple disparate sources within a single search interface posed engineering challenges.
Novelty and Inventive Step
The examiner allowed the claims because the way the system interacts with interface elements is a practical application of determining relevant information in response to a question. Furthermore, the examiner stated that the use of images obtained from multiple disparate resources that represent different entities while simultaneously representing a type of content for a given entity as interactive user interface elements that enable a user to request additional content for a respective entity is novel and non-obvious.
Claims
This patent contains 20 claims, of which claims 1, 9, and 14 are independent. The independent claims are directed to methods and a system for providing a search results page with a knowledge panel that includes images and facts related to a searched entity. The dependent claims generally elaborate on the features and functionalities of the knowledge panel and user interactions with it.
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Date
Description
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US11836177
- Application Number
- US17444965
- Filing Date
- Aug 12, 2021
- Status
- Granted
- Expiry Date
- Dec 5, 2032
- External Links
- Slate, USPTO, Google Patents