Method and architecture for consolidated database search for input recognition systems

• US 20040073540A1
• Filed: 04/10/2003
• Published: 04/15/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Wang, Kuansan, Ollason, David G., Bhatia, Siddharth
• Granted Patent: US 7,197,494 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/274 Syntactic or semantic context, e.g. balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/193 Formal grammars, e.g. finite state automata, context free grammars or word networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/959 Network
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation

Abstract

A method and system are provided for recognizing user input. User input is applied to at least one model to identify at least one decoded value found in a grammar. The decoded value and at least one database value stored in the grammar are then returned. The database value corresponds to a database value found in a database that is separate from the grammar. Under one embodiment, the database is associated with an application that accesses database values in the database. Under a further embodiment, two database values are returned with the decoded value where one of the database values corresponds to a database value in a first database and the other database value corresponds to a database value in a second database.

Claims

1. A method of recognizing input, the method comprising:

receiving values representing user input;

applying the input values to at least one model to identify at least one decoded value found in a grammar; and

returning the identified decoded value and at least one database value stored in the grammar, the database value corresponding to a database value found in a first database.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising returning a second database value corresponding to a database value found in a second database.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the first database is associated with a first application that accesses database values in the first database.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the first database is associated with a first application that accesses database values in the first database and the second database is associated with a second application that accesses database values in the second database.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein applying the input values to at least one model comprises applying the input values to an acoustic model.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein returning the decoded value and the database value comprises returning a mark-up language page.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising updating the grammar by accessing the first database to obtain updated database values.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein updating the grammar further comprises not changing the decoded values in the grammar.

9. A system for decoding user input, the system comprising:

a user agent providing a user interface for obtaining input from a user;

a recognition grammar comprising a set of allowed decoded values and at least one associated database value; and

a recognition process capable of identifying at least one decoded value in the grammar from the user input and capable of returning the identified decoded value and an associated database value stored in the grammar to the user agent.

10. The system of claim 9 further comprising a database having database values, the recognition grammar comprising at least one database value found in the database.

11. The system of claim 10 further comprising an application capable of accessing database values in the database.

12. The system of claim 11 further comprising a second database and wherein the recognition grammar further comprises at least one database value found in the second database.

13. The system of claim 12 further comprising a second application capable of accessing a database value in the second database.

14. The system of claim 11 wherein the user agent obtains input from the user based on instructions received from the application.

15. The system of claim 9 wherein the recognition process returns the decoded value and the database value in a mark-up language page.

16. The system of claim 9 wherein the user agent is executed on a first computing device and the recognition process is executed on a second computing device.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the first computing device communicates with the second computing device through a network.