USPTO Awards Second Key Information Access Patent to Endeca; Issuance Comes on the Heels of Patent for Endeca's Signature Guided Navigation Experience.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Endeca (http://endeca.com/), a next-generation information access company, today announced that it has been awarded U.S. Patent No. 7,062,483, covering key extensions to the company's core information access innovations. The issuance comes less than three months after Endeca was awarded U.S. Patent No. 7,035,864, covering the company's faceted navigation system and method for information retrieval, widely known in the search and information access markets as the Guided Navigation(R) experience. The inventions covered in this latest patent extend the capabilities of Guided Navigation-solutions to include never before possible combinations of search and Guided Navigation.

"The innovations covered in the new patent came as a direct result of Endeca's unique vantage point as a pioneer in faceted navigation. Our experience deploying hundreds of Guided Navigation customer applications, combined with our continued emphasis on research and development has yielded unique insight into this new field that has influenced subsequent innovations," said Adam Ferrari, CTO of Endeca. "As the requirements of next generation retrieval and analysis applications continue to exceed the capabilities of legacy search and database architectures, this culture of innovation will ensure that Endeca is at the forefront of the rapidly evolving information access market."

The new patent includes innovations that solve two long-standing - and related - information access problems: Plain language querying of structured data collections and search query disambiguation. The former allows people to use an intuitive search box to find valuable information stored in databases and content repositories, as opposed to having to make formally structured queries. The latter addresses multiword search queries that may have multiple interpretations - a common source of user frustration when search engines return seemingly irrelevant results.

For example, one such innovation covered in the new patent is "Compound Dimension Search", which interprets plain language keyword searches into semantically meaningful structured queries. For example, when using traditional keyword search, a query for "western sales" will return a list of records that include the keywords "western" and "sales" in any combination. In contrast, when using Compound Dimension Search, the same search will identify valid and semantically meaningful structured queries of interest, such as a filter to select results matching "Region= Western AND Report Type = Sales results" or "Customer = Best Western AND Department = Sales." This guides end users to clarify their intent and select the subset of results most relevant to their needs.

Endeca has played a pioneering role in commercializing faceted navigation-based solutions. In 2001, following two years of dedicated research and development, Endeca unveiled its first commercial information access product and introduced the Guided Navigation experience as a new means of finding, analyzing, and understanding information.

About Endeca

Endeca is a next-generation information access company. Combining patented intellectual property, breakthrough science and a deep focus on user experience, the Endeca Information Access Platform helps people find, analyze and understand information in ways never before possible. Leading global organizations like ABN AMRO, Bank of America, Boeing, Costco, Cox Newspapers, The (US) Defense Intelligence Agency, The Home Depot, Hyatt, IBM, John Deere, Lehman Brothers, The Library of Congress, Texas Instruments, and Walmart.com rely on Endeca to power business-critical applications that increase revenue, reduce costs and streamline operations.

Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, Endeca is a private company with operations in North America, Europe and Asia. For more information: www.endeca.com or [e-mail].