Destination searching system and method

• US 20070016556A1
• Filed: 07/13/2005
• Published: 01/18/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: FINEDIGITAL Inc., Gyeonggi Provincial Government, Gyeonggi Small & Medium Business Center
• Original Assignee: FINEDIGITAL Inc.
• Inventors: Yoon, Won-Sik, Kim, Jai-Hoon, Ann, Seong, Kim, Byung-soo
• Application Number:
  US11/180,343
• Publication Number:
  US 20070016556A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases

Abstract

A destination searching system and method is provided. The system includes: a controller; an interface; a POI (Point Of Interest) hierarchically ordering unit for extracting a trade name and a geographical name from each of a plurality of POIs, hierarchically ordering and classifying an industry type, providing a description of each category, suitable classification of each POI into a category, and storing the classified POI; a query analyzing unit for, when receiving a query for a destination search, recognizing the industry type, the geographical name, and other character strings from a character string included in the received query; and a POI selecting unit for extracting a POI candidate, and selecting a POI determined to be the closest to a destination queried by a user.

Claims

1. A destination searching system comprising:

a controller;

an interface;

a POI (Point Of Interest) hierarchically ordering unit for extracting a trade name and a geographical name from each of a plurality of POIs, hierarchically ordering and classifying an industry type depending on a category, providing a description to each category, suitable classification of each POI into the category, and storing the classified POI in a database;

a query analyzing unit for, when receiving a query for a destination search, recognizing the industry type, the geographical name, and other character strings from a character string included in the received query; and

a POI selecting unit for extracting a POI candidate with reference to the database, depending on the analysis result of the query analyzing unit, and selecting a POI determined to be the closest to a destination queried by a user.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the description comprises a synonym, a key word, a provided service, and a feature of the category.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein the POI hierarchically ordering unit comprises:

a trade name/address extracting unit for extracting the trade name and the address from each of the plurality of POI files;

a category file creating unit for classifying a plurality of industry types by a plurality of categories, and hierarchically ordering the classified categories to provide at least one lower category;

a description defining unit for providing a description to each of the classified categories; and

a POI classifying unit for classifying and storing each of the plurality of POIs depending on the category.

4. The system according to claim 3, wherein the description defining unit adds or updates the description provided to each category on the basis of the query for the destination search.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein the query analyzing unit comprises:

an industry type recognizing unit for extracting a character string representing the category or the description for the category, from the character string included in the received query, and determining the industry type from the extracted character string;

a geographical name recognizing unit for extracting and recognizing geographical name information from the character string included in the query; and

an other-character string recognizing unit for recognizing a remaining character string, except for the character string for recognizing the industry type and the character string for recognizing the geographical name, from the character string included in the query.

6. The system according to claim 5, wherein when the character string included in the query includes the trade name, the industry type recognizing unit determines the trade name as the POI.

7. The system according to claim 5, wherein when the character string included in the query does not include the geographical name information, the geographical name recognizing unit recognizes the whole country as a search basis.

8. The system according to claim 5, wherein when the character string included in the query does not include the geographical name information, the geographical name recognizing unit recognizes the position information of a terminal which transmits the query as the search basis.

9. A destination searching method comprising the steps of:

classifying each of a plurality of POIs depending on a hierarchical category, providing a description of each category, and storing the provided description;

receiving a query for a destination search, extracting a character string representing the category or the description for the category, from the character string included in the received query, and determining the industry type of a search-targeted POI;

determining a geographical name of the search-targeted POI, from the character string included in the query;

extracting at least one consistent POI with reference to the determined industry type and geographical name; and

selecting the closest POI from the extracted POIs, with reference to a character string relating to the industry type and a character string not specifying the geographical name, which are included in the query.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the description comprises a synonym, a key word, a provided service, and a feature of the category.

11. The method according to claim 9, wherein in the determination of the industry type, when the query includes the character string representing a trade name, the trade name included in the query is determined as a search-targeted POI.

12. The method according to claim 9, wherein the hierarchical ordering of the POIs comprises the steps of:

extracting a trade name and an address from a POI file including the trade name, a coordinate, and a full address;

classifying a plurality of industry types by a plurality of categories, and hierarchically ordering the classified categories;

providing the description to each category; and

classifying and including each POI in a suitable category.

13. The method according to claim 9, wherein the determination of the geographical name comprises:

checking whether or not the query includes the geographical name;

if it is confirmed that the query includes the geographical name, the geographical name included in the query is used as a search-targeted geographical name;

if it is confirmed that the query does not include the geographical name, a check is performed as to whether or not the position of a terminal transmitting the query is received;

when the terminal position is received, the terminal position is converted into the geographical name, and the converted geographical name is used as the search-targeted geographical name; and

when the terminal position is not received, determining the whole country as a search basis.