System and Method for the Transformation and Canonicalization of Semantically Structured Data

• US 20070050413A1
• Filed: 10/23/2006
• Published: 03/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/21/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: AOL Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Woods, Steven, Carriere, Steven, Kominek, John
• Granted Patent: US 7,676,500 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/1815 Semantic context, e.g. disambiguation of the recognition hypotheses based on word meaning
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4878 Advertisement messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4938 comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML
• 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 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A method of transforming and canonicalizing semantically structured data includes obtaining data from a network of computers, applying text patterns to the obtained data and placing the data in a first data file, providing a second data file containing the obtained data in a uniform format, and generating interface specific sentences from the data in the second data file.

Claims

1. A method for generating grammatical sentences, comprising the steps of:

obtaining data from a network of computers'"'"';

applying text patterns to the obtained data and placing the data in a first data file;

providing a second data file containing said text patterns in a transformed uniform and semantically structured data structure format; and

generating grammatical sentences from the data in said data structure according to a specific canonical interface in the second data file.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of providing a second data file comprises applying a lexical entry transformation table to transform the obtained data into a common semantic form.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of providing a second data file comprises applying attribute phrase grammars to the obtained data.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of providing a second data file comprises applying term arrangement rules.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of providing a second data file comprises applying a second lexical entry transformation table to transform data to a normalized and tagged format.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the second data file in a uniform database.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the uniform format comprises a normalized and tagged format.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of generating grammatical sentences comprises applying attribute phrase grammars to the data in the second data file to create a parsed form of the data.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the step of generating grammatical sentences comprises applying lexical entry transformation tables to the parsed form of the data to create a term substituted form of the data.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of generating grammatical sentences comprises applying term rearrangement rules to the term substituted form of the data according to a specific interface to create a rearranged form of the data.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the step of generating grammatical sentences comprises applying phrase generation grammars to the rearranged form of the data to create interface specific sentences.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing voice output corresponding to the interface specific sentences.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising communicating the voice output to a telephone.

14. A system for generating grammatical sentences, the system comprising:

means for obtaining data from a network of computers;

means for applying text patterns to the obtained data and placing the data in a first data file;

means for providing a second data file containing at least a portion of said text patterns in a transformed uniform and semantically structured data structure; and

means for generating grammatical sentences from the data in said data structure according to a specific canonical interface in the second data file.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising means for storing the second data file in a uniform database.

16. The system of claim 14, further comprising means for providing voice output corresponding to the interface specific sentences.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising means for communicating the voice output to a telephone.

18. The system of claim 14, wherein the means for providing a second data file comprises means for applying a lexical entry transformation table to transform the obtained data into a common semantic form.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein the means for generating grammatical sentences comprises means for applying various generation grammars to create interface specific sentences.

20. A method for taking data from one format to any of a variety of interface dependent formats, comprising the steps of:

obtaining data from a network of computers;

creating a first data file with the obtained data in a first format by applying text patterns to the obtained data, wherein said first data file is in a transformed and semantically structured format; and

generating grammatical phrases from the converted obtained data according to a canonical structure the generated grammatical phrases being in a second format associated with a specific user interface.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising communicating voice output corresponding to the generated grammatical phrases.

22. The method of claim 20, further comprising storing the first data file and the generated grammatical phrases in a database.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein the step of obtaining data from a network of computers comprises obtaining data from the Internet.

24. A system for taking data from one format to any of a variety of interface dependent formats, the system comprising:

means for obtaining data from a network of computers;

means for creating a first data file with the obtained data in a first format by applying text patterns to the obtained data, wherein said first data file is in a transformed and semantically structured format; and

means for generating grammatical phrases from the converted obtained data according to a canonical structure, the generated grammatical phrases being in a second format associated with a specific user interface.

25. The system of claim 24, further comprising means for communicating the generated grammatical phrases by voice to a remote communication device.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the remote communication device is a telephone.

27. The system of claim 24, wherein the means for generating grammatical phrases from the obtained data comprises means for generating wireless application protocol (WAP) phrases.

28. The system of claim 27, further comprising means for communicating WAP phrases to a WAP communication device.

29. The system of claim 24, further comprising means for organizing a plurality of data files containing obtained data from the obtaining means.

30. A computer program product comprising computer readable program code for taking data from one format to any of a variety of interface dependent formats, the program code in the computer program product comprising:

first computer readable program code for obtaining data from a network of computers;

second computer readable program code for creating a first data file with the obtained data in a first format by applying text patterns to the obtained data, wherein said first data file is in a transformed and semantically structured format; and

third computer readable program code for generating grammatical phrases from the converted obtained data according to a canonical structure, the generated grammatical phrases being in a second format associated with a specific user interface.

31. The program code of claim 30, further comprising fourth computer readable program code for providing voice output corresponding to the generated grammatical phrases.

32. The program code of claim 31, further comprising fifth computer readable program code for communicating the voice output to a telephone.

33. The program code of claim 30, further comprising sixth computer readable program code for organizing a plurality of data files containing obtained data in the first format.

34. The program code of claim 30, wherein the first format comprises a normalized and tagged format.

35. The program code of claim 30, wherein the generated grammatical phrases are in a web related format.

36. A method for generating sentences from structured voice data, the method comprising the steps of:

using a user interface having a voice portal to obtain semantically structured data from a network of computers;

transforming and canonicalizing said semantically structured data;

applying text patterns to said transformed and canonicalized data and placing the data in a first data file;

providing a second data file containing the obtained data in a uniform format; and

generating grammatical sentences from the data according to a specific user interface in the second data file.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein said step of using a user interface having a voice portal to obtain data comprises:

sending voice command to said network of computers.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein said step of using a user interface having a voice portal to obtain data comprises:

receiving at least part of said grammatical sentences.

39. The method of claim 38, wherein said voice portal comprises any of.

a cell phone, and

a plain old telephone service.

40. The method of claim 37, wherein said voice portal uses word-based automatic speech recognition.

41. The method of claim 36, further comprising the steps of:

notifying a customer management subsystem of abnormal termination of said user interface; and

returning session state of said user upon resuming session.