A Search Result (aka : ResultSet) is the raw interpretation of a given set of MS/MS spectra given by a search engine or a denovo interpretation process. The content of a Search Result is one or many peptides matching to the submitted MSMS spectrum (PSM), each peptide being issued from protein sequences. The Search Result also contains additional information such as search parameters, used data-bank, etc.

An Identification Summary is a set of identified proteins inferred from a subset of the PSM contained in the *Search Result*. The subset of PSM taken into account are the PSM that have been validated a filtering process (example: PSM fulfilling some specified criteria such as score greater than a threshold value).