13. A method for receiving and processing search queries and presenting search results to users, the method comprising: a) receiving a query comprising terms representing a patent claim search; b) using a search engine to retrieve from a database a first set of patent information, each item of the first set of patent information comprising one or more claims responsive to the query, wherein the query comprises a plurality of query permutations derived from the original query language and comprising either or both of a claim text-based query permutation and a key concept-based query permutation, and wherein the search engine is adapted to execute a plurality of query search permutations in arriving at the first set of patent information; c) re-ranking the entire first set of patent information based on a set of patent features to generate a re-ranked set of patent information without reducing the number of candidate patent documents in the set, the re-ranking module being adapted to weight the set of patent features based on a set of features including at least one classification feature related to a subject matter of the claim, and wherein the set of patent features comprises one or more from a group consisting of: fields of a patent; patent title; patent abstract; patent IPC code; patent references; patent claims; rank-c, representing a lowest rank of any claim of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; sim(c,c), representing a highest similarity score between the query and claims in a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; sim(c,cs), representing a similarity score between the query and all the claims of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; sim(c,title), representing a similarity score between the query and the title of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; sim(c,abstract), representing a similarity score between the query and the abstract of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; sim(key,key), representing a similarity score between key concepts of the query and a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; sim(key,title), representing a similarity score between the key concept of the query and the title of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; sim(key,abstract), representing a similarity score between the key concept of the query and the abstract of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; IPC-overlap, representing a number of overlapping IPC codes between IPC codes of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents and the IPC codes of an initial high-ranking set of patents in the first set of candidate patent documents; and direct-Cite, representing the number of patents in the initial high-ranking set of patent documents that cite or are cited by a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; and d) generating for display an ordered set of information derived from the re-ranked set of patent information responsive to the query.
13. A method for receiving and processing search queries and presenting search results to users, the method comprising: a) receiving a query comprising terms representing a patent claim search; b) using a search engine to retrieve from a database a first set of patent information, each item of the first set of patent information comprising one or more claims responsive to the query, wherein the query comprises a plurality of query permutations derived from the original query language and comprising either or both of a claim text-based query permutation and a key concept-based query permutation, and wherein the search engine is adapted to execute a plurality of query search permutations in arriving at the first set of patent information; c) re-ranking the entire first set of patent information based on a set of patent features to generate a re-ranked set of patent information without reducing the number of candidate patent documents in the set, the re-ranking module being adapted to weight the set of patent features based on a set of features including at least one classification feature related to a subject matter of the claim, and wherein the set of patent features comprises one or more from a group consisting of: fields of a patent; patent title; patent abstract; patent IPC code; patent references; patent claims; rank-c, representing a lowest rank of any claim of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; sim(c,c), representing a highest similarity score between the query and claims in a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; sim(c,cs), representing a similarity score between the query and all the claims of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; sim(c,title), representing a similarity score between the query and the title of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; sim(c,abstract), representing a similarity score between the query and the abstract of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; sim(key,key), representing a similarity score between key concepts of the query and a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; sim(key,title), representing a similarity score between the key concept of the query and the title of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; sim(key,abstract), representing a similarity score between the key concept of the query and the abstract of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; IPC-overlap, representing a number of overlapping IPC codes between IPC codes of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents and the IPC codes of an initial high-ranking set of patents in the first set of candidate patent documents; and direct-Cite, representing the number of patents in the initial high-ranking set of patent documents that cite or are cited by a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents; and d) generating for display an ordered set of information derived from the re-ranked set of patent information responsive to the query. 20. The method of claim 13 , wherein the set of patent features includes IPC-overlap, representing the number of the overlapping IPC codes between the IPC codes of a patent in the first set of candidate patent documents and the IPC codes of an initial high-ranking set of patent documents in the first set of candidate patent documents, the re-ranking module further adapted to compute IPC-overlap including code adapted to define the overlap score between two IPC codes, divide each IPC code to a plurality of levels based on IPC code structure, and wherein a first level overlap between two IPC codes results in a first score and a second level overlap between two IPC codes results in a second score.