Abstract: The present invention is related to patent-related tools, and methodologies involving those tools, for assisting in all stages of research and development (R&D) projects. The IPAM server may be used in conjunction with the tools and methodologies to aid in R&D projects. These tools or methods include, but are not limited to, a topographic map, a top company table, a top inventor table, a inventors by company table, a features grouping, a technology classification, a Standard Industrial Codes (SIC) classification, a patent citation tree, a patent count/year, an application count/year, a nested patent citation tree, a product/patent/revenue table, a patent/months to issue chart, and a document/annotation chart.

Abstract: The present invention relates a retrieving technology by using an index obtained at a specific time point and a rule obtained at a specific time point. The present invention provides a storage system includes: a first logical unit for storing an index; a second logical unit for storing a rule that defines how to output search results; a third logical unit for storing a snapshot of the index created based on a predetermined time; and a fourth logical unit for storing a snapshot of the rule created based on a predetermined time; a search engine server is configured to: search the index stored in the third logical unit with a keyword included in a search request for an index record; and output storage location information of a data object included in the extracted index record in an order according to the rule stored in the fourth logical unit.