System and method for delivering targeted advertisements and/or providing natural language processing based on advertisements

• US 10,134,060 B2
• Filed: 07/29/2016
• Issued: 11/20/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 02/06/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: VB Assets, LLC
• Original Assignee: VB Assets, LLC
• Inventors: Freeman, Tom, Kennewick, Mike
• Primary Examiner(s): Albertalli, Brian L
• Application Number:
  US15/223,870
• Publication Number:
  US 20160335676A1
• Time in Patent Office: 844 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/263 Language identification
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0242 Determining effectiveness of advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/18 using natural language modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence

Abstract

The system and method described herein may use various natural language models to deliver targeted advertisements and/or provide natural language processing based on advertisements. In one implementation, an advertisement associated with a product or service may be provided for presentation to a user. A natural language utterance of the user may be received. The natural language utterance may be interpreted based on the advertisement and, responsive to the existence of a pronoun in the natural language utterance, a determination of whether the pronoun refers to one or more of the product or service or a provider of the product or service may be effectuated.

Claims

1. A method of processing natural language utterances that include requests, and selecting and presenting advertisements based thereon, the method being implemented by one or more physical processors programmed with computer program instructions which, when executed, cause the one or more physical processors to perform the method, the method comprising:

providing a natural language utterance as an input to a speech recognition engine;

receiving words or phrases, recognized from the natural language utterance, as an output of the speech recognition engine;

providing the words or phrases as an input to a conversational language processor;

receiving, from the conversational language processor, an interpretation of the natural language utterance based on the recognized words or phrases;

determining a context for the natural language utterance based at least on the recognized words or phrases;

determining that the natural language utterance includes a cross-application request based on the interpretation of the natural language utterance, the cross-application request comprising at least a first request and a second request to be serviced by different context-appropriate applications;

providing the first request to a first application to service the first request;

providing the second request to a second application to service the second request;

selecting an advertisement based at least on the determined context and either or both of the first request or the second request;

generating a service output responsive to the natural language utterance, the service output comprising;

(i) a first output received from the first application responsive to the first request;

(ii) a second output received from the second application responsive to the second request; and

(iii) the selected advertisement; and

providing the service output via an output device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

mapping, by the speech recognition engine, a stream of phonemes contained in the natural language utterance to one or more syllables that are phonemically represented in an acoustic grammar to recognize the words or phrases;

wherein providing the words or phrases comprises generating a preliminary interpretation, by the speech recognition engine, for the natural language utterance from the one or more syllables; and

wherein the preliminary interpretation generated from the one or more syllables includes the recognized words or phrases.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

using an environmental model to determine environmental information, wherein determining a context for the natural language utterance is further based on the environmental information.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the environmental information comprises a user location, a user activity, or a user action.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that the natural language utterance includes a cross-application request is further based on the determined context.

6. A system for processing natural language utterances that include requests, and selecting and presenting advertisements based thereon, the system comprising:

one or more physical processors programmed with computer program instructions which, when executed, cause the one or more physical processors to;

provide a natural language utterance as an input to a speech recognition engine;

receive words or phrases, recognized from the natural language utterance, as an output of the speech recognition engine;

provide the words or phrases as an input to a conversational language processor;

receive, from the conversational language processor, an interpretation of the natural language utterance based on the recognized words or phrases;

determine a context for the natural language utterance based at least on the recognized words or phrases;

determine that the natural language utterance includes a cross-application request based on the interpretation of the natural language utterance, the cross-application request comprising at least a first request and a second request to be serviced by different context-appropriate applications;

provide the first request to a first application to service the first request;

provide the second request to a second application to service the second request;

select an advertisement based at least on the determined context and either or both of the first request or the second request;

generate a service output responsive to the natural language utterance, the service output comprising;

(i) a first output received from the first application responsive to the first request;

(ii) a second output received from the second application responsive to the second request; and

(iii) the selected advertisement; and

provide the service output via an output device.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the one or more physical processors are further programmed to:

map, via the speech recognition engine, a stream of phonemes contained in the natural language utterance to one or more syllables that are phonemically represented in an acoustic grammar to recognize the words or phrases;

wherein to provide the words or phrases, the one or more physical processors are programmed to generate a preliminary interpretation for the natural language utterance from the one or more syllables; and

wherein the preliminary interpretation generated from the one or more syllables includes the recognized words or phrases.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein the one or more physical processors are further programmed to:

use an environmental model to determine environmental information, wherein the context for the natural language utterance is determined based further on the environmental information.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the environmental information comprises a user location, a user activity, or a user action.

10. The system of claim 6, wherein the determined cross-application request is based further on the determined context.

11. A method of processing natural language utterances that include requests, and selecting and presenting purchase opportunities based thereon, the method being implemented by one or more physical processors programmed with computer program instructions which, when executed, cause the one or more physical processors to perform the method, the method comprising:

providing a natural language utterance, that includes a request, as an input to a speech recognition engine;

receiving words or phrases, recognized from the natural language utterance, as an output of the speech recognition engine;

providing the recognized words or phrases as an input to a conversational language processor;

receiving, from the conversational language processor, an interpretation of the natural language utterance based on the recognized words or phrases;

determining that the natural language utterance further includes incomplete or unrecognized words or phrases such that insufficient information is available to determine the request;

selecting a plurality of purchase opportunities, based at least in part on the interpreted natural language utterance, responsive to the determination that the natural language utterance further includes incomplete or unrecognized words or phrases such that insufficient information is available to determine the request;

presenting the plurality of purchase opportunities to a user via an output device;

receiving an indication that a user interaction has occurred with at least one of the plurality of purchase opportunities;

determining the request based on the interpretation of the natural language utterance and a context of the at least one purchase opportunity with which the user interaction occurred; and

servicing the request.

12. A system for processing natural language utterances that include requests, and selecting and presenting purchase opportunities based thereon, the system comprising:

one or more physical processors programmed with computer program instructions which, when executed, cause the one or more physical processors to;

provide a natural language utterance, that includes a request, as an input to a speech recognition engine;

receive words or phrases, recognized from the natural language utterance, as an output of the speech recognition engine;

provide the recognized words or phrases as an input to a conversational language processor;

receive, from the conversational language processor, an interpretation of the natural language utterance based on the recognized words or phrases;

determine that the natural language utterance further includes incomplete or unrecognized words or phrases such that insufficient information is available to determine the request;

select a plurality of purchase opportunities, based at least in part on the interpreted natural language utterance, responsive to the determination that the natural language utterance further includes incomplete or unrecognized words or phrases such that insufficient information is available to determine the request;

present the plurality of purchase opportunities to a user via an output device;

receive an indication that a user interaction has occurred with at least one of the plurality of purchase opportunities;

determine the request based on the interpretation of the natural language utterance and a context of the at least one purchase opportunity with which the user interaction occurred; and

service the request.