Business lines

• US 10,643,227 B1
• Filed: 07/06/2010
• Issued: 05/05/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 03/23/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Aurea Software Incorporated (ESW Capital, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Aurea Software Incorporated (ESW Capital, LLC)
• Inventors: Gupta, Amit, Prospero, Michael, Mohanty, Binay, Gupta, Aparna, Cooke, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Ruhl, Dennis W
• Application Number:
  US12/831,237
• Time in Patent Office: 3,591 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0204 Market segmentation

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a method for identifying business lines of a company. The method classifies several documents as relevant to several different business lines and several different companies. For a particular company and particular business line, the method identifies a number of documents classified as relevant to both the particular company and the particular business line. When the identified number of documents exceeds a particular threshold, the method associates the particular business line as a business line of the particular company. In some embodiments, the method calculates a score for each business line in the set. The score for a particular business line represents the importance of the particular business line to the particular company. The method sorts the business lines in the set based on the calculated scores.

Claims

1. A method, implemented by an electronic device, of operating operates a search engine to identify documents on a network based on content relevancy and identifying business lines of a company, the method comprising:

executing a web crawler to search for and retrieve documents on the network;

storing in an electronic memory a plurality of company data structures for a plurality of companies, each company data structure storing patterns of document elements in documents retrieved including anchor word sets and other word sets with a context of each anchor word in an anchor word set parsing a document to identify words in the document;

identifying anchor words in the document;

if a predetermined number of anchor words are present in the document perform an evaluation process a. through h.;

a. comparing, by the electronic device, a set of documents from a plurality of resources with a first set of content relevance models that define relevance of the documents to different companies and a second set of content relevance models that define relevance of the documents to different business lines, wherein each content relevance model includes (i) data that is used to identify documents related to a business line or a company that the model represents, (ii) the patterns of document elements associated with scores, and (iii) parameters used in the analysis of documents by the model;

b. accessing the first and second patterns and based on the patterns and calculating a content relevance score as an arithmetic function of the patterns and parameters of the content relevance models, wherein the content relevant score represents at least a number of anchor words in each document related to one or more of the business lines and one or more of the companies;

c. when a particular document in the set of documents satisfies a particular content relevance score of a particular content relevance model, in the first set of content relevance models, associated with a particular company, associating the particular company with the particular document by storing an identifier of the particular company in a data structure for the document;

d. when a particular document in the set of documents satisfies a particular content relevance score of a particular content relevance model, in the second set of content relevance models, associated with a particular business line, associating the particular business line with the particular document by storing an identifier of the particular business line in a data structure for the document;

e. determining a first threshold number and a second threshold number, wherein (i) the first threshold number is dependent on the first business line, (ii) the second threshold number is dependent on the second business line, and (iii) the first threshold number is different from the second threshold number;

f. when more than the first threshold number of documents are associated with a first company and a first business line, specifying the first business line as a business line of the first company by storing an identifier of the first business line in a data structure for the first company;

g. when more than the second threshold number of documents are associated with a second company and a second business line, specifying the second business line as a business line of the second company by storing an identifier of the second business line in a data structure for the second company; and

h. upon receiving a request for the first company, accessing, searching the data structure for the identifiers, and displaying a set of data for a business line associated with the first company based on the stored identifiers in the data structure for the first company;

if a predetermined number of anchor words are not present in the document, do not perform the evaluation process a. through h.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the documents are retrieved from the world wide web.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein a particular threshold number is higher for business lines in a first set of industries than for business lines in a second set of industries.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the first set of industries comprises the financial industry.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein a particular threshold number is lower when the overall number of documents classified as relevant to the an associated company is lower.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first threshold number is further dependent on the first business line.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the second threshold number is further dependent on the second business line.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein specifying the first business line as a business line of the first company further comprises storing a reference to the first company in a data structure for the first business line and specifying the second business line as a business line of the second company further comprises storing a reference to the second company in a data structure for the second business line.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the first threshold number is further dependent on a third business line associated with the first company.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the third business line comprises a financial industry business line.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the first business line comprises a technology industry business line.

12. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program which when executed by at least one processing unit operates a search engine to identify documents on a network based on content relevancy identifies business lines of a company, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

executing a web crawler to search for and retrieve documents on the network;

storing in an electronic memory a plurality of company data structures for a plurality of companies, each company data structure storing patterns of document elements in documents retrieved including anchor word sets and other word sets with a context of each anchor word in an anchor word set parsing a document to identify words in the document;

identifying anchor words in the document;

if a predetermined number of anchor words are present in the document perform an evaluation process a. through h;

a. comparing a set of documents from a plurality of resources with a first set of content relevance models that define relevance of the documents to different companies and a second set of content relevance models that define relevance of the documents to different business lines, wherein each content relevance model includes (i) data that is used to identify documents related to a business line or a company that the model represents, (ii) the patterns of document elements associated with scores, and (iii) parameters used in the analysis of documents by the model;

b. accessing the first and second patterns and based on the patterns and calculating a content relevance score as an arithmetic function of the patterns and parameters of the content relevance models, wherein the content relevant score represents at least a number of anchor words in each document related to one or more of the business lines and one or more of the companies;

c. when a particular document in the set of documents satisfies a particular content relevance model, in the first set of content relevance models, associated with a particular company, associating the particular company with the particular document by storing an identifier of the particular company in a data structure for the document;

d. when a particular document in the set of documents satisfies a particular content relevance model, in the second set of content relevance models, associated with a particular business line, associating the particular business line with the particular document by storing an identifier of the particular business line in a data structure for the document;

e. determining a first threshold number and a second threshold number, wherein (i) the first threshold number is dependent on the first business line, (ii) the second threshold number is dependent on the second business line, and (iii) the first threshold number is different from the second threshold number;

f. when more than the first threshold number of documents are associated with a first company and a first business line, specifying the first business line as a business line of the first company by storing an identifier of the first business line in a data structure for the first company;

g. when more than the second threshold number of documents are associated with a second company and a second business line, specifying the second business line as a business line of the second company by storing an identifier of the second business line in a data structure for the second company; and

h. upon receiving a request for the first company, accessing, searching the data structure for the identifiers, and displaying a set of data for a business line associated with the first company based on the stored identifiers in the data structure for the first company;

if a predetermined number of anchor words are not present in the document, do not perform the evaluation process a. through h.

13. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 12, wherein the first threshold number is further dependent on a third business line associated with the first company.

14. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the first business line comprises a financial industry business line.

15. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14, wherein the second business line comprises a technology industry business line.

16. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 12, wherein the first threshold number is further dependent on an overall number of documents classified as relevant to the first company.

17. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 12, wherein the set of instructions for specifying the first business line as a business line of the first company further comprises a set of instructions for storing a reference to the first company in a data structure for the first business line.

18. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 17, wherein the set of instructions for specifying the second business line as a business line of the second company further comprises a set of instructions for storing a reference to the second company in a data structure for the second business line.

19. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 12, wherein the set of instructions for comparing the set of documents from the plurality of resources with the first set of content relevance models and the second set of content relevance models comprises a set of instructions for identifying a set of patterns of document elements in each document, each pattern previously identified as indicating relevance to a specific business line.