Apparatus for classifying or disambiguating data

• US 20050091211A1
• Filed: 11/18/2004
• Published: 04/28/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/06/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Crystal Semantics Limited.
• Original Assignee: Crystal Reference Systems Ltd. (Inuvo, Inc.)
• Inventors: Crystal, David, Vernau, Judi
• Granted Patent: US 7,305,415 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/30 of unstructured textual data document management systems G06F16/93
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/353 into predefined classes
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99947 Object-oriented database structure reference

Abstract

A computing system has a data storage device (4, 5, 6) for storing a database consisting of a classified vocabulary of terms. A processor (1) of the apparatus is arranged to associate each term with one of a number of different categories of data and to associate all terms falling within the same category with a common code identifying a collocation of terms that exemplify that category so that terms in different categories are associated with different codes and can be disambiguated. The processor (1) is arranged to write, directly or indirectly, a classified vocabulary consisting of the terms together with the associated code onto a computer-readable storage medium (RDD2) or to supply an electrical signal via, for example a MODEM (10) or a LAN/WAN (11). The database may be used in classification of documents, spelling checking of documents and refining of keyword search results.

Claims

1. (canceled).

2. A computer processing apparatus for checking spelling in a document, comprising:

means for accessing a database structure providing a plurality of different subject matter categories, the database containing a classified vocabulary consisting of terms in all of the different subject matter categories with each term being classified in accordance with the subject matter category structure of the database;

means for receiving in computer-readable form a text document to be spell-checked;

processor means operable to compare terms appearing in the text document with the terms in the classified vocabulary, to determine from the comparison the category for the document, to identify any term in the document not present in the classified vocabulary and to determine the term or terms in the classified vocabulary closest to an unidentified term and having the same category as that determined for the document; and

means for supplying a user with said determined term or terms.

3-78. -78. (canceled).