Apparatus and methods for an information retrieval system that employs natural language processing of search results to improve overall precision
First Claim
1. Apparatus for use in an information retrieval system for retrieving stored documents from a repository, said system having a retrieval system, responsive to a query, for retrieving, from the repository, a plurality of stored documents related to the query so as to define an output document set;
- said apparatus comprising;
a processor; and
memory having executable instructions stored therein; and
wherein the processor, in response to the instructions stored in the memory;
produces, in response to the query, a first logical form therefor, wherein the first logical form portrays semantic relationships between words associated with the query;
obtains a corresponding second logical form for each different one of the documents in the output document set, wherein the second logical form portrays semantic relationships between words associated with a phrase in said one document;
ranks a plurality of the documents in the output document set as a predefined function of the first logical form of the query and the second logical form for each one of the plurality of documents in the output document set so as to define a rank order; and
provides, as output and in said rank order, a plurality of stored entries associated with the output document set.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Apparatus and accompanying methods for an information retrieval system that utilizes natural language processing to process results retrieved by, for example, an information retrieval engine such as a conventional statistical-based search engine, in order to improve overall precision. Specifically, such a search ultimately yields a set of retrieved documents. Each such document is then subjected to natural language processing to produce a set of logical forms. Each such logical form encodes, in a word-relation-word manner, semantic relationships, particularly argument and adjunct structure, between words in a phrase. A user-supplied query is analyzed in the same manner to yield a set of corresponding logical forms therefor. Documents are ranked as a predefined function of the logical forms from the documents and the query. Specifically, the set of logical forms for the query is then compared against a set of logical forms for each of the retrieved documents in order to ascertain a match between any such logical forms in both sets. Each document that has at least one matching logical forms is heuristically scored, with each different relation for a matching logical forms being assigned a different corresponding predefined weight. The score of each such document is, e.g., a predefined function of the weights of its uniquely matching logical forms. Finally, the retained documents are ranked in order of descending score and then presented to a user in that order.
-
Citations
123 Claims
-
1. Apparatus for use in an information retrieval system for retrieving stored documents from a repository, said system having a retrieval system, responsive to a query, for retrieving, from the repository, a plurality of stored documents related to the query so as to define an output document set;
- said apparatus comprising;
a processor; and memory having executable instructions stored therein; and wherein the processor, in response to the instructions stored in the memory; produces, in response to the query, a first logical form therefor, wherein the first logical form portrays semantic relationships between words associated with the query; obtains a corresponding second logical form for each different one of the documents in the output document set, wherein the second logical form portrays semantic relationships between words associated with a phrase in said one document; ranks a plurality of the documents in the output document set as a predefined function of the first logical form of the query and the second logical form for each one of the plurality of documents in the output document set so as to define a rank order; and provides, as output and in said rank order, a plurality of stored entries associated with the output document set. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62)
- said apparatus comprising;
-
63. A method for use in an information retrieval system for retrieving stored documents from a repository, said system having a retrieval system, responsive to a query, for retrieving, from the repository, a plurality of stored documents related to the query so as to define an output document set;
- the method comprising the steps of;
producing, in response to the query, a first logical form therefor, wherein the first logical form portrays semantic relationships between words associated with the query; obtaining a corresponding second logical form for each different one of the documents in the output document set, wherein the second logical form portrays semantic relationships between words associated with a phrase in said one document; ranking a plurality of the documents in the output document set as a predefined function of the first logical form of the query and the second logical form for each one of the plurality of documents in the output document set so as to define a rank order; and providing, as output and in said rank order, a plurality of stored entries associated with the output document set. - View Dependent Claims (64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123)
- the method comprising the steps of;
Specification