Apple files for patent for a lyric search service for Apple Music

Apple has filed for a patent (number 20290340193) for a “lyric search service” that shows the company wants to improve the ability of Apple Music to find a song based on its lyrics. 

In the new patent filing, Apple says can’t usually search for a song based on the lyrics of the song. The best that a user can typically do is perform a text-based search on the Internet and hope that the query matches a transcription of the lyrics in a song that is published on a website. 

Once the user has the information about the song, they can then perform another search to locate an audio file of the song within a data repository maintained by a music sharing service. Apple thinks it can do better.

Here’s Apple’s summary of the invention: “This application relates to a client-server architecture that enables search queries to be applied to transcription information for multimedia files. A server device implements a service configured to query a search platform to retrieve results associated with a plurality of multimedia files stored in a content database. The results are ordered according to a plurality of heuristic values calculated based on a text relevance analysis. 

“The service is configured to modify the heuristic values to adjust an order of the results, and generate a response to a search request that includes a representation of at least a portion of the transcription information of the multimedia files referenced by the results. The heuristic values are modified based on at least one of a popularity score for a corresponding multimedia file, a weight associated with a particular field, or a relevance score based on feedback signals.

Of course, Apple files for — and is granted — lots of patents by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Many are for inventions that never see the light of day. However, you never can tell which ones will materialize in a real product.