Geographical location extraction

• US 20050108213A1
• Filed: 12/22/2003
• Published: 05/19/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 11/13/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Whereonearth Ltd. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Patel, Devesh, Riise, Soren, Stipp, Eugene
• Granted Patent: US 7,257,570 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/919 Geographic
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

A geographical location extraction method and tool to infer a likely geographical location from one or more search terms entered as a query by a user on a search engine or the like, the method comprising utilising one or more processes selected from the group consisting of: word analysis to determine which parts of a search query comprise location names and provide an indicator of the extent to which a given search term or part thereof should be treated as a geographical location; ranking geographical location names in accordance with the probability that the location names are likely to be searched; returning a list of probable locations in response to a search term comprising a non-geographical search term associated with a geographical location name; determining a geographical distance between a likely geographical location derived from the search term and a derived geographical location of a user; the user submitting criteria including a locality name, identifying from the criteria the locality name and returning, in dependence on the locality name, a probability that the locality name is associated with a geographical location; categorising search terms in a query into a local activity or a remote activity; analysing the order in which words appear in a search query string, in combination with a search in a locations database, to return a likelihood of a search term relating to a list of probable associated locations; and inferring a geographical location from a search query including a point of interest.

Claims

1. A geographical location extraction method to infer a likely geographical location from one or more search terms entered as a query by a user on a search engine or the like, the method comprising utilising one or more processes selected from the group consisting of:

word analysis to determine which parts of a search query comprise location names and provide an indicator of the extent to which a given search term or part thereof should be treated as a geographical location;

ranking geographical location names in accordance with the probability that the location names are likely to be searched;

returning a list of probable locations in response to a search term comprising a non-geographical search term associated with a geographical location name;

determining a geographical distance between a likely geographical location derived from the search term and a derived geographical location of a user;

the user submitting criteria including a locality name, identifying from the criteria the locality name and returning, in dependence on the locality name, a probability that the locality name is associated with a geographical location;

categorising search terms in a query into a local activity or a remote activity;

analysing the order in which words appear in a search query string, in combination with a search in a locations database, to return a likelihood of a search term relating to a list of probable associated locations; and

inferring a geographical location from a search query including a point of interest.

2. A method according to claim 1 comprising a combination of all the processes.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the step of word analysis to determine which parts of a search query comprise location names provides an indicator of the extent to which a given search term or part thereof should be treated as a geographical location by assigning a probability that a search term is a geographical location term and another probability that the search term is a non-geographical location term.

4. A method according to claim 3 wherein the method is further refined by calculating a probability split based on a word use frequency and the significance of the word as a geographical location name.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein ranking geographical location names in accordance with the probability that the location names are likely to be searched comprises ranking geographical location names by country-based statistics and town-based statistics to determine the search likelihood of geographical locations.

6. A method according to claim 5, wherein the probability of a location being the geographical location searched for is weighted by an event occurrence at the geographical location.

7. A method according to claim 1, wherein returning a list of probable locations in response to a search term comprising a non-geographical search term associated with a geographical location name comprises identifying a set of associated search words for a given geographical location name, there being an increased probability of the geographical location name being the term searched for if the non-geographical search term is in the set of associated search words for that geographical location name.

8. A method according to claim 7, wherein the set of associated search words are identified by determining frequency of occurrence of search words in sources known to relate to a particular geographical location.

9. A method according to claim 1, wherein categorising search terms in a query into a local activity or a remote activity comprises rule-based processing or a look-up operation in a database of search terms and respective probabilities that the search term relates to a local activity (“

near”

) or a remote activity (“

far”

).

10. A method according to claim 1, wherein derived geographical information concerning the location of the user is used in combination with the “

near”

or “

far”

categorisation to determine whether a “

near”

or a “

far”

geographical location to the user location is sought by the search term.

11. A method according to claim 1, wherein analysing the order in which words appear in a search query string comprises the further step of identifying the non-appearance of a word in the string and, in combination with a search in a locations database, returning a likelihood of a search term relating to a list of probable associated locations.

12. A method according to claim 1, wherein inferring a geographical location from a search query including points of interest comprises deriving the geographical location of the user and the points of interest, identifying the geographical distance from the user to the respective points of interest and inferring the geographical location to be the nearest point of interest to the user location.

13. A computer program or tool comprising computer program code, or code, adapted to infer a likely geographical location from one or more search terms entered as a query by a user on a search engine or the like, when said program is run on a computer, by utilising one or more processes selected from the group consisting of:

word analysis to determine which parts of a search query comprise location names and provide an indicator of the extent to which a given search term or part thereof should be treated as a geographical location;

ranking geographical location names in accordance with the probability that the location names are likely to be searched;

returning a list of probable locations in response to a search term comprising a non-geographical search term associated with a geographical location name;

determining a geographical distance between a likely geographical location derived from the search term and a derived geographical location of a user;

the user submitting criteria including a locality name, identifying from the criteria the locality name and returning, in dependence on the locality name, a probability that the locality name is associated with a geographical location;

categorising search terms in a query into a local activity or a remote activity;

analysing the order in which words appear in a search query string, in combination with a search in a locations database, to return a likelihood of a search term relating to a list of probable associated locations; and

inferring a geographical location from a search query including a point of interest.

14. A computer program as claimed in claim 13 embodied on a computer readable medium.