System for providing information via interactive surface

Abstract

A system for providing information via an interactive surface is provided. The surface has information for searching and coded data. The coded data encodes coordinates on the surface and a region identity associated with the surface. A sensing device interacted with the surface senses the coded data and generates interaction data indicative of the region identity and a coordinate position of the sensing device relative to the surface. The system identifies and retrieves a page description corresponding to the surface using the region identity received from the sensing device, determines the information for searching corresponding to a zone of the page description containing the coordinate position of the sensing device, creates a query expression having a search term(s) based on the determined information for searching, form a request using the query expression, and sends the request, or a results resource including search results from the request, to a display device.

1 . A system for providing information via an interactive surface, the interactive surface comprising information for searching and coded data, the coded data encoding a plurality of coordinates on the surface and identifying a region identity associated with the surface, the system configured to:
 identify and retrieve a page description corresponding to the surface using the region identity received from a sensing device used to interact with the surface, the sensing device sensing the coded data and generating interaction data indicative of the region identity and at least one coordinate position of the sensing device relative to the surface from the interaction;   determine the information for searching corresponding to a zone of the page description containing the coordinate position of the sensing device;   create a query expression comprising at least one search term based on the determined information for searching;   form a request using the query expression; and   send the request, or a results resource including search results obtained using the request, to a display device.   
     
     
         2 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the request is a request URI derived from the query expression. 
     
     
         3 . A system as claimed in  claim 2 , wherein the display device comprises a web terminal and receipt of the request URI by the display device initiates retrieval of a corresponding resource via the internet. 
     
     
         4 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the display device is a mobile phone or a personal digital assistant. 
     
     
         5 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the at least one search term is a keyword extracted from text in the zone. 
     
     
         6 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein at least one of said search terms identifies a concept, a person, an organization, a place, a product, a publication, a weather condition, a geographic location, a date, a time of day, a day of the week, a current user location, a user home location, a user demographic indicator, a user preference, a search history, a click-through history, a user interest or a user language. 
     
     
         7 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein at least one of said search terms is derived from a resource description, a subject description, a user description or an environment description. 
     
     
         8 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the query expression is generated by combining the search terms using operators selected from the group comprising: Boolean operators, proximity constraint operators and occurrence constraint operators. 
     
     
         9 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the at least one search term is a primary search term and at least one of the other search terms of the query expression is a context search term, said context search term being derived from a word, phrase, line, sentence, paragraph, section, article, document or region containing the zone. 
     
     
         10 . A system as claimed in  claim 9 , wherein said context search term is contained in or associated with a word, phrase, line, sentence, paragraph, section, article, document or region containing the zone. 
     
     
         11 . A system as claimed in  claim 9 , wherein the search results all contain the primary search term, and are ranked according to whether they contain the context search term. 
     
     
         12 . A system as claimed in  claim 5 , wherein said keyword comprises a plurality of associated words, said plurality of associated words being identified from at least one word in the zone. 
     
     
         13 . A system as claimed in  claim 12 , wherein the page description comprises a lexicon for identifying said plurality of associated words from the at least one word and at least one adjacent word. 
     
     
         14 . A system as claimed in  claim 9 , wherein the at least one primary search term is a keyword and the at least one context search term is derived by at least partially determining a meaning of said keyword. 
     
     
         15 . A system as claimed in  claim 14 , wherein the meaning is at least partially determined using a method selected from the group consisting of:
 identifying a part of speech for said keyword;   identifying a supersense of said keyword; and   identifying a concept corresponding to said keyword in an ontology.   
     
     
         16 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the results resource is derived, at least partially, from the request using at least one of: a concordance; a semantic concordance; a database of search terms associated with advertisements; and a search engine. 
     
     
         17 . A system as claimed in  claim 16 , wherein the search engine is selected using said page description. 
     
     
         18 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the surface is selected from the group consisting of: a printed document, a printed form, a page of a printed publication, a package for a product item, a label for a product item and a surface of a product item. 
     
     
         19 . A system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the display device comprises the sensing device.