System for linked and networked document objects

摘要

Systems and methods for searching relationships between and among documents are disclosed. A user interface for presenting document objects and relationships between document objects located on a network is also disclosed. The document objects provided to the user may be determined based on document object references corresponding to the document objects. Document object information, relationship information, and contextual relationship information may also be provided to the user.

主权项

1. A system comprising:
one or more interconnected servers accessible to users of said system, wherein each of the one or more interconnected servers includes a processor and one or more memory devices that store or allow access to one or more directories; one or more document objects stored in or accessible to said interconnected servers; document object information pertaining to said one or more document objects; relationship information pertaining to relationships between two or more of said document objects, said relationship information stored in records in the one or more directories and accessible to said interconnected servers; said records comprising a traversable pairwise connection between document objects, having a field identifying document object information pertaining to a first document object, a field identifying document object information pertaining to a second document object, and one or more fields identifying contextual relationship information describing the traversable connection between the two document objects; wherein said document object information comprises a document object reference, the document object reference corresponds to at least one of said document objects; at least one of said interconnected servers configured to allow at least one of said users to establish at least one of said relationships between said two or more document objects, wherein establishing one of said relationships enhances the functionality of the interconnected servers by creating traversable pairwise connections of document objects, stored in records, which are available to the users; at least one of said interconnected servers configured to make at least a portion of said document objects accessible over the internet; at least one of said interconnected servers configured to make at least one of said document objects accessible to at least one of said users based on at least one of said document object references corresponding to said at least one accessible document object; at least one of said interconnected servers configured to receive requests and at least one of said interconnected servers configured to retrieve at least a portion of said records; and at least one of said interconnected servers configured to transmit for use in a display to at least one of said users at least a portion of said document object information, and at least a portion of said contextual relationship information; wherein the at least one of the interconnected servers configured to retrieve is adapted to retrieve directly from the stored records, said portions of the stored records to be transmitted, and enhance functionality of the interconnected servers by improving speed and precision of transforming a user's request into a display of the transmitted portions.