PRESENTING ANSWERS

• US 20110231395A1
• Filed: 03/19/2010
• Published: 09/22/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/19/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: VADDADI, PHANI, SRIKANTH, MUNIRATHNAM, SURENDRAN, ARUNGUNRAM CHANDRASEKARAN, NAJM, TAREK, VADLAMANI, VISWANATH
• Application Number:
  US12/727,836
• Publication Number:
  US 20110231395A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/723
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3329 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/358 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/367 Ontology

Abstract

Systems, methods, and computer-storage media for presenting answers are provided. The system includes a search engine to receive user queries and contexts, a query understanding component to provide results, and an answer generator to present answers to the user queries. The answers may include a link to a browser that provides a graph, table, or cluster for the results, where nodes of the graph are associated with a confidence level.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method to present answers to a user query, the method comprising:

receiving a user query;

identifying results that respond to the user query;

selecting answers based on the results and an ontology; and

presenting the identified results and the selected answers for display to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the ontology describes relationships associated with terms included in the user query.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the answers comprise phrases included in the ontology and navigable links to documents in the results.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein presenting the identified results and the answers includes displaying the answers in a table.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein presenting the identified results and the answers includes displaying the answers in clusters.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein presenting the identified results and the answers includes displaying the answers in a graph having a network of nodes.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the answers are associated with a confidence level.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the answers link to a browser for traversing relationships associated with answers.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the relationships are entities in the ontology associated with the user query.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the links are navigable icons for related entities or documents associated with the entities.

11. One or more computer readable media configured to perform a method to process queries, the method comprising:

receiving a user query;

identifying results that respond to the user query;

selecting answers based on the results and an ontology, wherein the ontology describes relationships associated with terms included in the user query; and

presenting the identified results and the selected answers for display to the user.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the answers comprise phrases included in the ontology and navigable links to documents in the results.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein presenting the identified results and the answers includes displaying the answers in a table.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein presenting the identified results and the answers includes displaying the answers in clusters.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein presenting the identified results and the answers includes displaying the answers in a graph having a network of nodes.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the answers are associated with a confidence level.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the answers link to a browser for traversing relationships associated with answers.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the relationships are entities in the ontology associated with the user query.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the links are navigable icons for related entities or documents associated with the entities.

20. A computer system configured to present answers to a user query, the computer system comprising:

a query understanding component configured to receive a query and parse the query to generate appropriate data source commands that are issued against data sources to obtain results; and

an answer generator configured to present answers and the results, wherein the answers include a link to a browser that provides a graph, table, or cluster for the results, wherein nodes of the graph are associated with a confidence level.