Annotation framework

• US 20070198499A1
• Filed: 02/17/2006
• Published: 08/23/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Ritchford, Tom, Betz, Jonathan
• Granted Patent: US 8,055,674 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes

Abstract

A fact repository contains facts having attributes and values and further having associated annotations, which are used, among other things, to vet facts in the repository and which can be returned in response to a query.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of querying a fact repository comprising a plurality of facts associated with objects, the method comprising:

receiving a search query;

retrieving at least one fact from the repository, the at least one fact corresponding to the received search query and having an attribute and a value;

retrieving at least one annotation associated with the at least one fact the annotation having a value corresponding to the value of the fact; and

sending the attribute and value of the retrieved fact in response to the query.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the search query is a request for facts associated with a particular object.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the search query is a query that can be matched by attributes or values of facts in the fact repository.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the annotation is retrieved before the at least one fact and the fact is retrieved in accordance with the annotation.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one fact is retrieved before the annotation and the annotation is retrieved in accordance with the fact.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the annotation has a value that is contained in the value of the at least one fact.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the annotation has a value that is based on the value of the at least one fact, but is not contained in the value of the at least one fact.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending the retrieved annotation in response to the query.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein each fact has no more than one annotation.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein each fact can have any number of annotations.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the annotation is a Number annotation.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the annotation is a Date annotation.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the annotation is a GeoPoint annotation.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the GeoPoint annotation is based on a place name in the fact'"'"'s value and the GeoPoint annotation has a latitude value and a longitude value.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the annotation has a plurality of values associated with it.

41. The method of claim 43, further comprising returning the retrieved annotation value in response to the query.

43. The method of claim 1, further comprising returning facts corresponding to the annotations in response to the query.

16. A system to allow a user to search a fact repository having a plurality of facts associated with objects, comprising:

a query receiver that receives a search query from an object requester;

a fact reviewer for retrieving at least one fact from the repository, the at least one fact corresponding to the received search query and having an attribute and a value; and

an annotation retriever for retrieving at least one annotation associated with the at least one fact, the annotation having a value corresponding to the value of the fact; and

a sender for sending the attribute and value of the retrieved fact and the annotation in response to the query.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the annotation is a Number annotation.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the annotation is a Date annotation.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the annotation is a GeoPoint annotation.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the GeoPoint annotation is based on a place name in the fact'"'"'s value and the GeoPoint annotation has a latitude value and a longitude value.

21. A computer implemented method of querying a fact repository comprising a plurality of facts associated with objects, the method performed by an object requester and comprising:

sending a search query from the object requester to the fact repository; and

receiving a query result having at least one fact from the repository, the result contents having at least one fact corresponding to the received search query and having an object ID having an annotation corresponding to the value of the fact.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising sending an annotation associated with the fact, the annotation having a portion of the fact'"'"'s value therein.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein the annotations are sent after the attribute and value of the fact.

24. A method of creating annotations for facts in a fact repository, comprising:

examining a fact in the repository of facts, the fact having an attribute and a value, to determine a corresponding value for an annotation; and

storing an annotation value in the repository, the annotation value corresponding to at least a portion of the fact value.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising compacting the annotation, along with other annotations.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein the annotation value is a part of the fact value.

27. The method of claim 24, wherein the annotation value is not a part of the fact value but is based on the fact value.

28. The method of claim 24, wherein the annotation refers to an index and length of the fact value to specify the annotation value.

29. The method of claim 24, wherein the annotation has multiple values based on the fact value.

30. The method of claim 24, wherein the annotation is a Number annotation.

31. The method of claim 24, wherein the annotation is a Date annotation.

32. The method of claim 24, wherein the annotation is a GeoPoint annotation.

33. The method of claim 32, wherein the GeoPoint annotation is based on a place name in the fact'"'"'s value and the GeoPoint annotation has a latitude value and longitude value.

34. A computer implemented method of removing duplicate facts from a fact repository comprising a plurality of facts associated with objects, the method comprising:

reviewing a first fact of an object, the first fact having an attribute and a value;

reviewing an annotation for a second fact of the same object; and

removing the first fact from the repository when the first fact'"'"'s value does not correspond to a value of the annotation.

35. The method of claim 34, wherein the annotation is a Number annotation.

36. The method of claim 34, wherein the annotation is a Date annotation.

37. The method of claim 34, wherein the annotation is a GeoPoint annotation.

38. The method of claim 34, wherein the annotation is a units annotation.

39. A computer implemented method of removing duplicate facts from a fact repository comprising a plurality of facts associated with objects, the method comprising:

reviewing an annotation of a first fact in the fact repository having an attribute and a value and an associated object;

reviewing an annotation for a second fact associated with the same object in the fact repository; and

removing one of the first and the second facts from the repository when the first and second fact have a matching attribute value.

40. A computer implemented method of improving a search query made to a fact repository comprising a plurality of facts associated with objects, the method comprising:

receiving the search query;

retrieving an annotation value that matches at least a part of the query;

retrieving at least one fact from the repository, the at least one fact corresponding to the received search query and having an attribute and a value;

determining whether the fact'"'"'s value corresponds to the annotation value; and

sending the retrieved fact in response to the query if it is determined that the fact'"'"'s value corresponds to the annotation value.

42. A computer implemented method of improving a search query made to a fact repository comprising a plurality of facts associated with objects, the method comprising:

annotating a plurality of snippets of facts in the repository;

receiving the search query;

in response to a received search query, returning annotations corresponding to the search query.

44. A system that removes duplicate facts from a fact repository comprising a plurality of facts associated with objects, the system comprising:

a repository accesser that obtains a first fact of an object, the first fact having an attribute and a value, and that further obtains an annotation for a second fact of the same object; and

a janitor that identifies the first fact for removal from the repository when the first fact'"'"'s value does not correspond to a value of the annotation.