CREATING A CALENDAR EVENT USING CONTEXT

• US 20150278199A1
• Filed: 04/01/2014
• Published: 10/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/01/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Duta, Nicolae, Hazen, Timothy J., Bishop, Diamond, Babaeizadeh, Mohammad, Longo, Peter
• Granted Patent: US 9,372,851 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/253 Grammatical analysis; Style critique
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/279 Recognition of textual entities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/40 Processing or translation of natural language natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1093 Calendar-based scheduling for persons or groups

Abstract

Methods and systems are provided for creating a calendar event using context. A natural language expression including at least one of words, terms, and phrases of text may be received at a calendar event creation module from an application. The calendar event creation module may identify one or more slots in the text of the natural language expression related to the calendar event using a first grammar module and a second grammar module. The one or more slots identified by the first grammar module and the second grammar module that indicate a calendar event may be compared to determine whether there is a match between the one or more identified slots. If a match is found, at least one calendar event using the one or more slots identified by the first grammar module and the second grammar module may be created.

Claims

1. A method for creating a calendar event, the method comprising:

receiving a natural language expression, wherein the natural language expression includes at least one of words, terms, and phrases of text;

identifying one or more slots in the text of the natural language expression that indicate a calendar event using a first grammar module and a second grammar module;

comparing the one or more slots identified by the first grammar module that indicate a calendar event with the one or more slots identified by the second grammar module that indicate a calendar event to determine whether the one or more slots identified by the first grammar module and the one or more slots identified by the second grammar module match; and

when the one or more slots identified by the first grammar module and the one or more slots identified by the second grammar module match, creating at least one calendar event using the one or more slots identified by the first grammar module and the second grammar module.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more slots related to a calendar event include at least one of a date, time, date/time, subject, duration and location type slot.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first grammar module and the second grammar module are context-independent grammar modules, wherein the first grammar module is an intent grammar module, and wherein the second grammar module is a slot grammar module.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying one or more slots in the text of the natural language expression comprises executing a parsing algorithm.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the first grammar module and the second grammar module have defined rules associated with the one or more types of slots.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the defined rules associated with the one or more types of slots include rules for context surrounding ambiguous words, terms, and phrases in the text.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the defined rules associated with the one or more types of slots include rules for context surrounding identified slots indicating a calendar event that negates the slots indicating a calendar event.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the defined rules associated with the one or more types of slots include rules that indicate a past event.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein the defined rules associated with the one or more types of slots include rules that indicate a negation of an event.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein identifying one or more slots in the natural language expression further comprises tagging each word, term, and phrase in the natural language expression that is found in the defined rules as the slot type associated with the defined rule where the word, term, or phrase is found.

11. The method of claim 2, further comprising inferring information from the one or more identified slots based on context derived from the text of the natural language expression.

12. The method of claim 2, further comprising linking one or more identified slots of the same type together when more than one slot of the same type is identified in the text of the natural language expression.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

presenting, on a display, a visual indicator associated with the at least one calendar event;

receiving an indication that the visual indicator has been invoked; and

displaying a proposed calendar event with auto-filled data from the one of more slots identified in the text of the natural language expression.

14. A computer storage device, having computer-executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, perform a method for creating a calendar event, the method comprising:

receiving a natural language expression, wherein the natural language expression includes at least one of words, terms, and phrases of text;

identifying one or more slots in the text of the natural language expression that indicate a calendar event using a first grammar module and a second grammar module;

comparing the one or more slots identified by the first grammar module that indicate a calendar event with the one or more slots identified by the second grammar module that indicate a calendar event to determine whether the one or more slots identified by the first grammar module and the one or more slots identified by the second grammar module match; and

when the one or more slots identified by the first grammar module and the one or more slots identified by the second grammar module match, creating at least one calendar event using the one or more slots identified by the first grammar module and the second grammar module.

15. The computer storage device of claim 14, wherein the one or more slots related to a calendar event include at least one of a date, time, date/time, subject, duration and location type slot.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the first grammar module and the second grammar module have defined rules associated with the one or more types of slots.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the defined rules associated with the one or more types of slots include rules for context surrounding ambiguous words, terms, and phrases in the text.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the defined rules associated with the one or more types of slots include rules for context surrounding identified slots indicating a calendar event that negates the slots indicating a calendar event.

19. The computer storage device of claim 15, the method further comprising inferring information from the one or more identified slots based on context derived from the text of the natural language expression.

20. A system comprising:

at least one processor; and

memory encoding computer executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, perform a method for creating a calendar event, the method comprising;

receiving a natural language expression, wherein the natural language expression includes at least one of words, terms, and phrases of text;

identifying one or more slots in the text of the natural language expression that indicate a calendar event using a first grammar module and a second grammar module;

comparing the one or more slots identified by the first grammar module that indicate a calendar event with the one or more slots identified by the second grammar module that indicate a calendar event to determine whether the one or more slots identified by the first grammar module and the one or more slots identified by the second grammar module match;

when the one or more slots identified by the first grammar module and the one or more slots identified by the second grammar module match, creating at least one calendar event using the one or more slots identified by the first grammar module and the second grammar module;

presenting, on a display, a visual indicator associated with the at least one calendar event;

receiving an indication that the visual indicator has been invoked; and

displaying a proposed calendar event with auto-filled data from the one of more slots identified in the text of the natural language expression.