Business or personal listing search

• US 10,026,402 B2
• Filed: 10/03/2016
• Issued: 07/17/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/13/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Strope, Brian, Byrne, William J., Beaufays, Francoise
• Primary Examiner(s): MCFADDEN, SUSAN IRIS
• Application Number:
  US15/284,323
• Publication Number:
  US 20170025123A1
• Time in Patent Office: 652 Days
• Field of Search: 704257
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/18 using natural language modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/197 Probabilistic grammars, e.g. word n-grams
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/30 Distributed recognition, e.g. in client-server systems, for mobile phones or network applications
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/223 Execution procedure of a spoken command
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/228 of application context

Abstract

A method of searching a business listing with voice commands includes receiving, over the Internet, from a user terminal, a query spoken by a user, which includes a speech utterance representing a category of merchandize, a speech utterance representing a merchandize item, and a speech utterance representing a geographic location. The method includes recognizing the geographic location with a speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the geographic location, recognizing the category of merchandize with the speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the category of merchandize, recognizing the merchandize item with a speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the merchandize item, searching a business listing for businesses within or near the recognized geographic location to select businesses responsive to the query spoken by the user, and sending to the user terminal information related to at least some of the responsive businesses.

Claims

1. A method of searching a business listing with voice commands over the Internet, the method comprising:

receiving, over the Internet, from a user terminal, a query spoken by a user, wherein the query spoken by the user includes a speech utterance representing a category of merchandize, a speech utterance representing a merchandize item, and a speech utterance representing a geographic location;

recognizing the geographic location with a speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the geographic location;

recognizing the category of merchandize with the speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the category of merchandize;

recognizing the merchandize item with a speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the merchandize item;

searching, with one or more processors, a business listing for businesses within or near the recognized geographic location to select businesses responsive to the query spoken by the user; and

sending to the user terminal information related to at least some of the responsive businesses.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising selecting, from a set of speech recognition language models for recognizing speech, a subset of speech recognition language models, wherein the subset of speech recognition language models is selected based on the recognized location.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the set of speech recognition language models includes N-grams in which a probability of a word in a vocabulary is estimated by counting the occurrences of that word in the context of a last N words.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the set of speech recognition language models includes phrase-list grammars in which a probability of a phrase is estimated by counting the occurrences of the phrase.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein searching the business listing within or near the recognized geographic location includes:

ascertaining an adjacent location that is adjacent to the recognized location;

searching the business listing for businesses within the adjacent location to select additional businesses responsive to the query spoken by the user.

6. A system, comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory storing instructions that when executed by at least some of the one or more processors effectuates operations comprising;

receiving, over the Internet, from a user terminal, a query spoken by a user, wherein the query spoken by the user includes a speech utterance representing a category of merchandize, a speech utterance representing a merchandize item, and a speech utterance representing a geographic location;

recognizing the geographic location with a speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the geographic location;

recognizing the category of merchandize with the speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the category of merchandize;

recognizing the merchandize item with a speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the merchandize item;

searching a business listing for businesses within or near and the recognized geographic location to select businesses responsive to the query spoken by the user; and

sending to the user terminal information related to at least some of the responsive businesses.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the operations comprise selecting, from a set of speech recognition language models for recognizing speech, a subset of speech recognition language models, wherein the subset of speech recognition language models is selected based on the recognized location.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the set of speech recognition language models includes N-grams in which a probability of a word in a vocabulary is estimated by counting the occurrences of that word in the context of a last N words.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the set of speech recognition language models includes phrase-list grammars in which a probability of a phrase is estimated by counting the occurrences of the phrase.

10. The system of claim 6, wherein searching the business listing within or near the recognized +geographic location includes:

ascertaining an adjacent location that is adjacent to the recognized location;

searching the business listing for businesses within the adjacent location to select additional businesses responsive to the query spoken by the user.

11. A method of searching a personal listing with voice commands over the Internet, the method comprising:

receiving, over the Internet, from a user terminal, a query spoken by a user, wherein the query spoken by the user includes a speech utterance representing a category of people, a speech utterance representing a person, and a speech utterance representing a geographic location;

recognizing the geographic location with a speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the geographic location;

recognizing the category of people with the speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the category of people;

recognizing the person with a speech recognition engine based on the speech utterance representing the person;

searching, with one or more processors, a personal directory for people within or near the recognized geographic location to select people responsive to the query spoken by the user; and

sending to the user terminal information related to at least some of the responsive people.

12. The method of claim 11, comprising selecting, from a set of speech recognition language models for recognizing speech, a subset of speech recognition language models, wherein the subset of speech recognition language models is selected based on the recognized location.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the set of speech recognition language models includes N-grams in which a probability of a word in a vocabulary is estimated by counting the occurrences of that word in the context of a last N words.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the set of speech recognition language models includes phrase-list grammars in which a probability of a phrase is estimated by counting the occurrences of the phrase.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein searching the personal listing within or near the recognized geographic location includes:

ascertaining an adjacent location that is adjacent to the recognized location;

searching the personal directory for people within the adjacent location to select additional people responsive to the query spoken by the user.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising providing a telephone number to the user terminal.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising an option of connecting the user terminal with one of the responsive people.