Patents by Inventor Sankrant Sanu

Sankrant Sanu has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 6638314
    Abstract: A computer based system and method of retrieving information pertaining to electronic documents on a computer network is disclosed. The method includes maintaining a database that associates each electronic document with a corresponding crawl number that indicates the most recent crawl during which a change to the document was detected. During a subsequent crawl, electronic documents that have changed since the previous crawl are retrieved, and selected data is stored in a database. The retrieved document information is marked with a crawl number. During subsequent searches, crawl numbers are used to determine documents that have changed since a specified crawl.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 26, 1998
    Date of Patent: October 28, 2003
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Dmitriy Meyerzon, Sankrant Sanu
  • Patent number: 6631369
    Abstract: A Web crawler creates an index of documents in a document store on a computer network. In an initial crawl, the crawler creates a first full index for the document store. The first full crawl is based on a set of predefined “seed” URLs and crawl restrictions, and involves recursively retrieving each folder/document directly or indirectly linked to the seed URLs. In the process of creating the first full index, the crawler creates a History Table containing a list of URLs for each folder and document found in the first full crawl. The History Table also includes a local commit time (LCT) for each document and a deleted documents count (DDC) and LCT or maximum LCT (MLCT) for each folder (this assumes that the store supports a folder hierarchy and the MLCT, LCT and DDC properties). Thereafter, in an incremental crawl, the crawler determines, for each folder, (1) whether the DDC for that folder has changed and (2) whether the MLCT is more recent than the corresponding value in the History Table.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 1999
    Date of Patent: October 7, 2003
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Dmitriy Meyerzon, Srikanth Shoroff, F. Soner Terek, Sankrant Sanu
  • Patent number: 6424966
    Abstract: A method and system for the processing and maintenance of electronic information retrieved from electronic documents stored on a computer network. The gatherer program of the present invention employs a crawler to crawl a portion of the computer network to retrieve electronic documents found during the crawl and that meet a set of crawl restriction rules. Some or all of the data contained in the copies of electronic documents is then stored in a data store such as an index. The invention keeps the data in the data store current by accepting notifications of when a previously retrieved document has changed. The notifications are sent by a notification source that monitors a space containing the previously retrieved documents for changes occurring after the document was last retrieved by the gatherer program.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 1998
    Date of Patent: July 23, 2002
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Dmitriy Meyerzon, Sankrant Sanu
  • Patent number: 6381602
    Abstract: Systems and methods for enforcing access control on secured documents that are stored outside of the direct control of the original application that would normally store and govern access to the documents. Access security can be enforced at a search engine associated with an indexing system that compiles references to documents at any number of network locations. The search engine discloses to the requesting user only those documents that the user is authorized to read. If a document is identified for potential disclosure to a user, and the document's source location has an access control system that is not directly interoperable with a native access control system of the search engine, a security provider at the search engine enforces access control. The security provider, in cooperation with the source location of the document, converts the user context that identifies the requesting user to a format that can be used by the security provider.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 26, 1999
    Date of Patent: April 30, 2002
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Srikanth Shoroff, F. Soner Terek, Sankrant Sanu, Andrew Wallace
  • Patent number: 6145003
    Abstract: A computer-based system and method of retrieving information pertaining to Web documents on a computer network is disclosed. The method includes maintaining an address map that associates primary addresses with secondary addresses. A primary address includes a network retrieval protocol and a network address. The secondary address may include a different retrieval protocol or a different network address from the primary document address. A Web crawler retrieves a Web document using the primary document address, and determines whether the address map contains a secondary document address prefix corresponding to the primary document address prefix. If a secondary document address prefix exists, the Web crawler creates a secondary address, retrieves additional information pertaining to the Web document, and combines the additional information with the data retrieved from the Web document. The combined data may be stored in an index, and subsequently used to perform a document search.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 17, 1997
    Date of Patent: November 7, 2000
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Sankrant Sanu, Dmitriy Meyerzon
  • Patent number: 5974409
    Abstract: The find system of the present invention operates as an extension of a computer's operating system and allows an end-user of an on-line network to enter a search request to locate offerings in different services. In the on-line network, multiple query modules process the search requests by using multiple indexes which associate search terms with offerings in the different services. In addition, multiple find modules balance the processing loads placed on the query modules by selectively routing the search requests to the query modules. In addition to locating offerings in the on-line network, the find system can also establish connections with external data sources and route search requests to the external data sources. Furthermore, the find system provides a fault-tolerant system in which the find modules reroute the search requests to other query modules when errors occur.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 23, 1995
    Date of Patent: October 26, 1999
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Sankrant Sanu, Alan S. Pearson