Method and an apparatus to disambiguate requests

• US 20080187121A1
• Filed: 02/02/2007
• Published: 08/07/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/29/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Agarwal, Rajeev, Valli, Zulfikar, Master, Muneeb, Ardman, David, Mauro, David Andrew, Ulug, Amy E., Raman, Vijay R.
• Granted Patent: US 8,175,248 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/218.01
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/33 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/10 Logic circuits
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/39 using speech synthesis speech synthesis per se G10L13/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition speech recognition per se G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4931 Directory assistance systems

Abstract

A method and an apparatus to disambiguate requests are presented. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving a request for information from a user. Then data is retrieved from a back-end database in response to the request. Based on a predetermined configuration of a disambiguation system and the data retrieved, the ambiguity within the request is dynamically resolved.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a request for information from a user;

retrieving data from a database within a system in response to the request; and

dynamically resolving ambiguity within the request based on a predetermined configuration of the system and the data retrieved.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuration comprises a rule and resolving ambiguity within the request comprises:

generating a prompt based on the data retrieved and the rule at runtime; and

rendering the prompt to the user.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

generating the prompt using a first predefined template.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein resolving ambiguity within the request further comprises:

receiving a response to the prompt from the user;

generating a grammar using a second predefined template;

recognizing the response using the grammar;

selecting a portion of the data retrieved based on the response; and

generating a second prompt based on at least one of the portion of the data retrieved, the response, and a second rule within the configuration if the ambiguity remains.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the prompt is an open-ended question if the data retrieved includes a number of entries exceeding a predefined threshold.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the prompt is a close-ended question if the data retrieved includes a number of entries below a predefined threshold.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuration comprises a policy and resolving ambiguity within the request comprises:

applying the policy to the retrieved data.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the policy includes a data filter policy and applying the policy to the retrieved data comprises filtering the retrieved data using a criterion specified in the data filter policy.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

rendering an error message if the ambiguity is not resolved under a predefined condition according to the configuration of the system.

10. An apparatus comprising:

a user interface to allow an integrator of a directory assistance system to define a configuration of the directory assistance system; and

a disambiguation engine operatively coupled to the user interface to dynamically resolve ambiguity within a user request for information according to the configuration of the directory assistance system.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, further comprising:

a configuration database operatively coupled to the disambiguation engine to store the configuration.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, further comprising:

a database operatively coupled to the disambiguation engine to store the information.

13. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the configuration includes a data filter policy and the disambiguation engine is operable to filter data retrieved in response to the user request based on the policy.

14. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the configuration includes a rule and the disambiguation engine is operable to generate a prompt based on the data retrieved and the rule.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the disambiguation engine comprises:

a prompt template processor to generate the prompt using a first predefined template.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, further comprising:

a voice browser to aurally present the prompt to a user.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, further comprising:

a second user interface to receive a response from the user; and

a grammar template processor to generate a grammar using a second predefined template used by the disambiguation engine to recognize the response.

18. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the user interface comprises a first user interface control to allow the integrator to select a policy out of a plurality of predefined policies.

19. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the user interface comprises a second user interface control to allow the integrator to modify the configuration.

20. A system comprising:

a database; and

a directory assistance system operatively coupled to the database, the directory assistance system comprising;

an input module to receive a request for information from a user;

a database access module to retrieve data from the database in response to the request; and

a configurable disambiguation engine to dynamically resolve ambiguity within the request based on a predetermined configuration of the directory assistance system and the data retrieved.

21. The directory assistance system of claim 20, wherein the configuration comprises a policy and the disambiguation engine is operable to filter the data retrieved according to the policy.

22. The directory assistance system of claim 20, wherein the configuration comprises a rule and the disambiguation engine is operable to generate a first prompt based on the data retrieved and the rule.

23. The directory assistance system of claim 22, wherein the disambiguation engine is operable to select a portion of the data retrieved based on a response to the first prompt from the user.

24. The directory assistance system of claim 22, wherein the disambiguation engine is operable to generate a second prompt based on at least one of the response to the first prompt, the portion of the data retrieved, and a second rule within the configuration if the ambiguity remains.

25. The directory assistance system of claim 22, further comprising:

a voice browser to aurally present the first prompt to the user.

26. A machine-accessible medium that stores instructions which, if executed by a processor, will cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

creating a first user interface to allow an integrator of a directory assistance system to define a configuration of the directory assistance system, wherein ambiguity within a request for information submitted to the directory assistance system is dynamically resolved based on the configuration and data retrieved in response to the request; and

storing the configuration in a configuration database.

27. The machine-accessible medium of claim 26, wherein the operations further comprise:

creating a second user interface to allow the integrator to modify the configuration.

28. The machine-accessible medium of claim 26, wherein the configuration comprises at least one of a policy and a rule.

29. The machine-accessible medium of claim 26, wherein the first user interface comprises:

creating a user interface control to allow the integrator to select a policy out of a plurality of predefined policies.