METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IDENTIFYING AND EXTRACTING MEANING IN DOCUMENTS

• US 20090099993A1
• Filed: 10/10/2007
• Published: 04/16/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/10/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Northern Light Group, LLC
• Original Assignee: Northern Light Group, LLC
• Inventors: Seuss, Charles D.
• Granted Patent: US 7,877,344 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/47
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/022 Knowledge engineering; Knowledge acquisition

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for an expert search engine. In one embodiment, a method may employ a computer based system to define a meaning taxonomy including one or more meaning loaded entities, associate documents to the meaning taxonomy based on a set of expert rules and the syntactic structures included in the documents and provide the results to a user. In another embodiment, a system includes interfaces for meaning taxonomy, expert rule and search criteria information. The information provided by these interfaces is then used to determine how a set of documents maps to meaning taxonomy to assist the user in locating documents that are most interesting from a meaning perspective and to provide a user with an interface to navigate the meaning taxonomy as it applies to the set of documents.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for extracting meaning from a plurality of documents, the method comprising:

identifying a meaning taxonomy including a plurality of concepts;

identifying a group of syntactic structures including at least one syntactic structure;

associating at least one of the group of syntactic structures with at least one of the plurality of concepts; and

associating at least one of the plurality of documents with at least one of the plurality of concepts based a relationship between the at least one of the plurality of documents and at least one of the group of syntactic structures.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein identifying the meaning taxonomy comprises identifying a plurality of meaning loaded entities.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein identifying a group of syntactic structures comprises identifying a word.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein identifying a group of syntactic structures comprises identifying a phrase.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein identifying a group of syntactic structures comprises identifying a sentence.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein associating the at least one of the group of syntactic structures comprises associating a plurality of the group of syntactic structures with at least one of the plurality of concepts.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein associating the at least one of the group of syntactic structures comprises associating a plurality of the group of syntactic structures in a relative proximity to each other with at least one of the plurality of concepts.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein associating the at least one of the plurality of documents comprises associating the at least one of the plurality of documents with the at least one of the plurality of concepts, the at least one of the plurality of documents including at least one of the group of syntactic structures that is associated with the at least one of the plurality of concepts.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein associating the at least one of the plurality of documents comprises associating the at least one of the plurality of documents with the at least one of the plurality of concepts, the at least one of the plurality of documents including none of the group of syntactic structures that is associated with the at least one of the plurality of concepts.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein associating at least one of the group of syntactic structures with at least one of the plurality of concepts comprises:

associating at least one normalized syntactic structure with at least one of the plurality of concepts; and

associating at least one non-normalized syntactic structure with the at least one normalized syntactic structure;

wherein associating at least one of the plurality of documents comprises associating at least one of the plurality of documents with at least one of the plurality of concepts based a relationship between the at least one of the plurality of documents and at least one non-normalized syntactic structure of the group of syntactic structures.

11. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further comprising:

executing a search against the plurality of documents, the search resulting in a subset of the plurality of documents; and

providing the subset of the plurality of documents to an external entity, the subset of the plurality of documents grouped by at least one concept of the plurality of concepts that is associated with at least one of the subset of the plurality of documents.

12. A computer readable medium having computer readable signals stored thereon that define instructions that, as a result of being executed by a computer, instruct the computer to perform a method for extracting meaning from a plurality of documents, the method comprising:

identifying a meaning taxonomy including a plurality of concepts;

identifying a group of syntactic structures including at least one syntactic structure;

associating at least one of the group of syntactic structures with at least one of the plurality of concepts; and

associating at least one of the plurality of documents with at least one of the plurality of concepts based a relationship between the at least one of the plurality of documents and at least one of the group of syntactic structures.

13. A computer-implemented method for providing analysis to a user of a computer system, the computer system having a display, the method comprising:

providing, to the user in the display of the computer system, a first result of executing a first search, the first result including a plurality of documents;

providing, to the user in the display, an input component that allows the user to provide at least one meaning loaded entity;

receiving, in the display, the at least one meaning loaded entity provided by the user; and

providing, to the user in the display, a second result of executing a second search, the second search executed against the plurality of documents and using the at least one meaning loaded entity;

wherein the second result is grouped by the at least one meaning loaded entity.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein providing, to the user in the display, the input component that allows the user to provide at least one meaning loaded entity comprises providing, to the user in the display, an input component that allows the user to provide at least one business related meaning loaded entity.

15. A computer-implemented method for configuring a meaning taxonomy, the method comprising:

providing, to the user in the display, an input component that allows the user to provide at least one non-normalized syntactic structure;

receiving, in the display, the at least one non-normalized syntactic structure;

providing, to the user in the display, an input component that allows the user to associate the at least one non-normalized syntactic structure with at least one meaning loaded entity; and

receiving, in the display, the association between the at least one non-normalized syntactic structure and the at least one meaning loaded entity.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein providing, to the user in the display, an input component that allows the user to provide at least one non-normalized syntactic structure comprises providing, to the user in the display, an input component that allows the user to enter a word.

17. The method according to claim 15, wherein providing, to the user in the display, an input component that allows the user to provide at least one non-normalized syntactic structure comprises providing, to the user in the display, an input component that allows the user to enter a phrase.

18. The method according to claim 15, wherein providing, to the user in the display, an input component that allows the user to provide at least one non-normalized syntactic structure comprises providing, to the user in the display, an input component that allows the user to enter a sentence.

19. The method according to claim 15, further comprising

providing, to the user in the display, an input component that allows the user to provide at least one meaning taxonomy element;

receiving, in the display, the at least one meaning taxonomy element;

providing, to the user in the display, an input component that allows the user to associate the at least one meaning taxonomy element with the at least one meaning loaded entity; and

receiving, in the display, the association between the at least one meaning taxonomy element and the at least one meaning loaded entity.

20. A computer readable medium having computer readable signals stored thereon that define instructions that, as a result of being executed by a computer, instruct the computer to perform a method for extracting meaning from a plurality of documents, the method comprising:

providing, to the user in the display of the computer system, a first result of executing a first search, the first result including a plurality of documents;

providing, to the user in the display, an input component that allows the user to provide at least one meaning loaded entity;

receiving, in the display, the at least one meaning loaded entity provided by the user; and

providing, to the user in the display, a second result of executing a second search, the second search executed against the plurality of documents and using the at least one meaning loaded entity;

wherein the second result is grouped by the at least one meaning loaded entity.

21. A system for building associations between a meaning taxonomy and at least one document comprising:

a first input configured to receive the at least one document from another system, the at least one document including syntactic structures;

a second input configured to receive a meaning taxonomy including a plurality of concepts;

a third input configured to receive a set of expert rules;

a memory having storage capacity; and

a controller coupled to the memory and the first, second and third inputs and configured to store an association of the at least one document with the meaning taxonomy based on the syntactic structures included in the document, the concepts in the meaning taxonomy and the set of expert rules.

22. The system according to claim 21, wherein the plurality of concepts includes a plurality of meaning loaded entities.

23. The system according to claim 21, wherein the set of expert rules includes a set of logical propositions, the logical propositions being expressed in terms of meaning loaded entities.

24. The system according to claim 21, wherein the controller is further configured to store the association of the at least one document with a concept within the meaning taxonomy, the concept being associated with a non-normalized syntactic structure that is included in the at least one document.

25. The system according to claim 22, wherein the controller is further configured to store the association of the at least one document with a meaning loaded entity within the meaning taxonomy, the meaning loaded entity being associated with an expert rule including a logical proposition that evaluates to true when evaluated against the at least one document.