Browser Assistant Local History Indexing for Search Personalization

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Current search engines do not effectively tailor results to individual users, leading to privacy concerns and inefficiencies in searching previously viewed documents, as they rely on remote data storage and lack meaningful retrieval mechanisms.

Innovation Solution

A passive mechanism that monitors user activity and creates an index of viewed documents, allowing for later searching and retrieval in a meaningful manner through a history database, which can modify and rank search results based on user interactions.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If search engines store client information on the server to tailor results, then search results are personalized, but privacy concerns arise and latency increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesearch result personalizationVSAvoidprivacy concerns

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts the history database functionality from the remote server and places it locally on the user's client device. This allows personalized search results to be generated using local history data without transmitting sensitive information over the network, thereby resolving the privacy concern while maintaining search result personalization

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces a browser assistant as an intermediary component that sits between the user's browser and the search engine. This browser assistant locally manages the history database and intercepts/searches history data before queries reach the search engine, enabling personalization without direct server-side storage of client information

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Adaptability or versatility

If search engines store client information on the server, then search results are personalized, but search process latency increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesearch result personalizationVSAvoidsearch process latency

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

By extracting the history database from remote server storage to local client storage, the patent eliminates network round-trips for history data access. The browser assistant can immediately query local history data and modify search results in real-time, significantly reducing search process latency while maintaining personalization capabilities

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent performs preliminary indexing of user browsing history locally on the client device. This pre-processing of history data into an searchable index format allows the browser assistant to quickly retrieve and apply historical context to search queries without requiring time-consuming network requests to the server

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

3Loss of information

If web browsers record search history, then user activity is tracked, but search results are not presented in a meaningful way

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesearch history trackingVSAvoidsearch result meaningfulness

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements a feedback mechanism where the browser assistant continuously monitors user interactions with search results (such as clicks, dwell time, and scrolling behavior) and uses this feedback to dynamically adjust and refine the presentation of search results. This creates a meaningful search experience by adapting results based on actual user preferences rather than just alphabetic ordering

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

Solution Approach 2:

The patent transforms static search history data into dynamic, context-aware search results. The browser assistant analyzes historical browsing patterns and dynamically reorders search results based on user behavior, making the search experience adaptive and meaningful rather than presenting fixed alphabetic lists

Inventive Principle:

Principle #15Dynamics

4Reliability

If users create bookmarks to flag documents, then previously viewed documents can be marked, but bookmarks are useless for unbookmarked content

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedocument flagging capabilityVSAvoidsearch coverage

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

The patent makes the browser assistant a universal solution that handles both bookmarked and non-bookmarked content uniformly. Instead of requiring explicit user action to flag documents, the system automatically processes all visited documents through the local history database, providing versatile search coverage across all user-accessed content regardless of bookmarking status

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Data Source

PatentUS8918401B1Systems and methods for providing searchable prior history

Publication Date: 2014.12.23 GOOGLE LLC

AI summary

A system may obtain search results associated with a search performed using a search query. The system may modify the search results, if necessary, based at least in part on information associated with prior document accesses by a user and present the modified search results to the user. The modification of the search results might including adding, deleting, and/or reordering items in the search results. One or more advertisements relevant to the search query may also be presented to the user along with the modified search results.