METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ANSWER EXTRACTION
First Claim
1. A document searching method comprising:
- employing a computer to receive, from a user, a query including at least one search term;
employing computerized answer retrieving functionality to generate document search terms including at least one additional search term not present in said query, which said at least one additional search term was acquired, prior to receipt by said computer of said query from said user, by said computerized answer retrieving functionality in response to at least one query in the form of a question; and
operating computerized search engine functionality to access a set of documents in response to said query, based not only on at least one search term supplied by said user in said query, but also on said at least one additional search term provided by said computerized answer retrieving functionality.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A document searching method including employing a computer to receive, from a user, a query including at least one search term, employing computerized answer retrieving functionality to generate document search terms including at least one additional search term not present in the query, which the at least one additional search term was acquired, prior to receipt by the computer of the query from the user, by the computerized answer retrieving functionality in response to at least one query in the form of a question; and operating computerized search engine functionality to access a set of documents in response to the query, based not only on at least one search term supplied by the user in the query, but also on the at least one additional search term provided by the computerized answer retrieving functionality.
-
Citations
239 Claims
-
1. A document searching method comprising:
-
employing a computer to receive, from a user, a query including at least one search term; employing computerized answer retrieving functionality to generate document search terms including at least one additional search term not present in said query, which said at least one additional search term was acquired, prior to receipt by said computer of said query from said user, by said computerized answer retrieving functionality in response to at least one query in the form of a question; and operating computerized search engine functionality to access a set of documents in response to said query, based not only on at least one search term supplied by said user in said query, but also on said at least one additional search term provided by said computerized answer retrieving functionality. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
-
-
20. A system for document searching comprising:
-
a computer operative to receive, from a user, a query including at least one search term; computerized answer retrieving functionality operative to generate document search terms including at least one additional search term not present in said query, which said at least one additional search term was acquired, prior to receipt by said computer of said query from said user, by said computerized answer retrieving functionality in response to at least one query in the form of a question; and computerized search engine functionality operative to access a set of documents in response to said query, based not only on said at least one search term but also on said at least one additional search term provided by said computerized answer retrieving functionality. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35)
-
-
36. An answer extraction method comprising:
-
employing a computer to receive a question from a user; employing a computer network to access a set of documents relevant to said question by employing document search terms derived by said computer from said question, said document search terms including at least one additional search term not present in the question, which said at least one additional search term was acquired prior to receipt of said question from said user; analyzing said set of documents to extract at least one answer to said question; and providing said at least one answer to said user. - View Dependent Claims (37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53)
-
-
54. An answer extraction system comprising:
-
a computer operative to receive a question from a user; computerized answer extraction functionality operative to employ a computer network to access a set of documents relevant to said question by employing document search terms derived by said computer from said question, said document search terms including at least one additional search term not present in the question, which said at least one additional search term was acquired prior to receipt of said question from said user; computerized answer analysis functionality for analyzing said set of documents to extract at least one answer to said question; and an output device operative to provide said at least one answer to said user. - View Dependent Claims (55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68)
-
-
69. An answer extraction method comprising:
-
employing a computer to receive a question from a user; employing a computer network to access a set of documents relevant to said question by employing document search terms derived by said computer from said question; extracting at least one answer to said question; and providing said at least one answer to said user, said extracting at least one answer comprising; generating an expected answer to said question, said expected answer including question keywords; analyzing said set of documents by; carrying out theme extraction on plural ones of said set of documents, said theme extraction utilizing statistical analysis of the frequency of occurrence of words to identify at least one theme word of a document, which theme word may or may not be a question keyword; and extracting sentences from plural ones of said set of documents; selecting at least one of said sentences as a potential answer if it fulfills at least one of the following criteria; a sentence including at least a predetermined plurality of question keywords; and a sentence including at least one question keyword and at least one theme word; scoring each of said at least one of said sentences selected as a potential answer; and identifying at least one of said at least one of said sentences selected as a potential answer based at least partially on results of said scoring. - View Dependent Claims (70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86)
-
-
87. An answer extraction system comprising:
-
a computer operative to receive a question from a user; and computerized answer extraction functionality operative to employ a computer network to access a set of documents relevant to said question by employing document search terms derived by said computer from said question, to extract at least one answer to said question and to provide said at least one answer to said user, said computerized answer extraction functionality comprising; an expected answer generator operative to generate an expected answer to said question, said expected answer including question keywords; a document analyzer operative to carry out theme extraction on plural ones of said set of documents, said theme extraction utilizing statistical analysis of the frequency of occurrence of words in a document to identify at least one theme word of said document, which theme word may or may not be a question keyword; a sentence extractor, operative to extract sentences from plural ones of said set of documents; a potential answer selector, operative to select at least one of said sentences as a potential answer if it fulfills at least one of the following criteria; a sentence including at least a predetermined plurality of question keywords; and a sentence including at least one question keyword and at least one theme word; and a potential answer identifier, operative to calculate a score for each of said at least one of said sentences selected as a potential answer and to identify at least one of said sentences selected as a potential answer based at least partially on said score. - View Dependent Claims (88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104)
-
-
105. An answer extraction method comprising:
-
employing a computer to receive a question from a user; employing a computer network to access a set of documents relevant to said question by employing document search terms derived by said computer from said question; extracting at least one answer to said question; and providing said at least one answer to said user, said extracting at least one answer including; enhancing at least one of said set of documents by; identifying capitalized phrases which appear in said at least one document; identifying designated capitalized words belonging to said capitalized phrases; and adding, to said at least one document adjacent each occurrence of a designated capitalized word that does not appear in a capitalized phrase, the designated capitalized word that does appear alongside thereof elsewhere in the document in a capitalized phrase; and carrying out analysis of said at least one document in order to identify at least one portion thereof as a potential answer. - View Dependent Claims (106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123)
-
-
124. An answer extraction system comprising:
-
a computer operative to receive a question from a user; computerized answer extraction functionality operative to employ a computer network to access a set of documents relevant to said question by employing document search terms derived by said computer from said question, to extract at least one answer to said question and to provide said at least one answer to said user, said computerized answer extraction functionality comprising a document analyzer operative to identify capitalized phrases which appear in a document belonging to said set of documents, to identify designated capitalized words belonging to said capitalized phrases, to add to said document adjacent each occurrence of a designated capitalized word that does not appear in a capitalized phrase, the designated capitalized word that does appear alongside thereof elsewhere in said document in a capitalized phrase, thereby providing an enhanced document, and to carry out analysis of said enhanced document in order to identify at least one portion thereof as a potential answer. - View Dependent Claims (125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142)
-
-
143. An answer extraction method comprising:
-
employing a computer to receive a question from a user; employing a computer network to access a set of documents relevant to said question by employing document search terms derived by said computer from said question; extracting at least one answer to said question; and providing said at least one answer to said user, said extracting at least one answer to said question comprising; identifying a multiplicity of potential answers; and evaluating each of said multiplicity of potential answers according to at least one of the following criteria; proximity of question keywords in the potential answer; proximity of classification words and nouns in the potential answer; and word count of at least part of the potential answer. - View Dependent Claims (144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169)
-
-
170. An answer extraction system comprising:
-
a computer operative to receive a question from a user; computerized answer extraction functionality operative to employ a computer network to access a set of documents relevant to said question by employing document search terms derived by said computer from said question, to extract at least one answer to said question and to provide said at least one answer to said user, said computerized answer extraction functionality being operative to identify a multiplicity of potential answers and to evaluate each of said multiplicity of potential answers according to at least one of the following criteria; proximity of question keywords in the potential answer; proximity of classification words and nouns in the potential answer; and word count of at least part of the potential answer. - View Dependent Claims (171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196)
-
-
197. A document searching method comprising:
-
employing a computer to receive a query including at least one search term from a user; and employing computerized synonym retrieving functionality operative in response to queries to generate document search terms including at least one additional search term not present in said query, said computerized synonym retrieving functionality being operative to generate said at least one additional search term by replacing at least one word in said query by at least one selected synonym thereof; and operating computerized search engine functionality to access a set of documents in response to said query, based on at least one of said at least one search term supplied by a user and said at least one additional search term provided by said computerized synonym retrieving functionality, said computerized synonym retrieving functionality being operative to identify said at least one selected synonym at least partially by reference to at least one word in said query other than said at least one word. - View Dependent Claims (198, 199, 200, 201, 202)
-
-
203. A document searching system comprising:
-
a computer operative to receive a query including at least one search term from a user; computerized synonym retrieving functionality operative, in response to queries, to generate document search terms, including at least one additional search term not present in said query and to generate said at least one additional search term by replacing at least one word in said query by at least one selected synonym thereof; and computerized search engine functionality operative to access a set of documents in response to said query, based on at least one of said at least one search term supplied by a user and said at least one additional search term provided by said computerized synonym retrieving functionality, said computerized synonym retrieving functionality being operative to identify said selected synonym at least partially by reference to a word in said query other than said at least one word. - View Dependent Claims (204, 205, 206, 207, 208)
-
-
209. A computerized synonym generating method comprising:
-
receiving a stream of words; employing a computer for generating a list of synonyms for at least one word in said stream of words; employing a computer for searching a corpus for synonym-containing phrases including at least one synonym in said list of synonyms together with at least part of said stream of words; employing a computer for evaluating the frequency of occurrence of each of said synonym-containing phrases; and proposing at least one selected synonym which forms part of a synonym-containing phrase having a relatively high frequency of occurrence in said corpus. - View Dependent Claims (210, 211)
-
-
212. A computerized synonym generating system comprising:
-
a computer operative to generate a list of synonyms for at least one word in a stream of words received from a user; computerized searching functionality operative to search a corpus for synonym-containing phrases including at least one synonym in said list of synonyms together with at least part of said stream of words; computerized frequency evaluation functionality operative to evaluate the frequency of occurrence of each of said synonym-containing phrases; and computerized synonym providing functionality operative to propose at least one selected synonym which forms part of a synonym-containing phrase having a relatively high frequency of occurrence in said corpus. - View Dependent Claims (213, 214)
-
-
215. A computerized question generation method comprising:
-
identifying at least one theme word in a document; searching for previously asked questions containing said at least one theme word or having previously generated answers containing said at least one theme word; and presenting said previously asked questions. - View Dependent Claims (216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222)
-
-
223. A computerized question generation system comprising:
-
computerized theme word identifying functionality for identifying at least one theme word in a document; computerized previous answer searching functionality operative to search for previously asked questions containing said at least one theme word or having previously generated answers containing said at least one theme word; and an output device for providing said previously asked questions. - View Dependent Claims (224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229)
-
-
230. A computerized editable report precursor generating method comprising:
-
inputting at least one question into a computer; employing said computer to obtain at least one answer to said at least one question; storing said at least one answer to said at least one question; presenting said at least one question to said at least one answer in an editable form on said computer as an editable report precursor; archiving a multiplicity of said editable report precursors; and following said archiving, employing said multiplicity of editable report precursors to enhance said employing said computer. - View Dependent Claims (231, 232, 233)
-
-
234. A computerized editable report precursor generating method comprising:
-
inputting at least one desired report subject identifier into a computer; employing said computer to generate at least one question related to a desired subject identified by said at least one desired report subject identifier; employing said computer to obtain at least one answer to said at least one question; and presenting said at least one question to said at least one answer in an editable form on said computer, thereby providing an editable report precursor. - View Dependent Claims (235, 236, 237, 238, 239)
-
Specification