×

System and method for natural language processing of sentence based queries

DC
  • US 7,624,007 B2
  • Filed: 12/03/2004
  • Issued: 11/24/2009
  • Est. Priority Date: 11/12/1999
  • Status: Expired due to Fees
First Claim
Patent Images

1. A distributed method of recognizing and responding in real time to a user question posed within an application program executing on a client device, comprising:

  • receiving query data generated by the client device over a network;

    considering a context experienced by a user within the application and loading one or both of appropriate grammars or dictionaries for the context;

    processing the query data at a server device to form a query text associated with the user question using the appropriate grammars and dictionaries;

    submitting the query text to a database query engine and a natural language engine;

    processing the query text using the natural language engine to identify any word phrases in the query text;

    retrieving a first set of question/answer pairs from a question/answer pair database using the database query engine;

    forming a combined query to a question/answer pair database using the database query engine, the combined query being based on the query text concatenated with the word phrases and retrieving a second set of question/answer pairs using the combined query;

    evaluating the first and second sets of question/answer pairs by comparing word phrases in the sets of question/answer pairs with the word phrases from the query text to identify at least one question/answer pair that best matches the user question; and

    providing an answer to the user question in real-time over a distributed query system, the answer being determined from the question/answer pair that best matches the user question.

View all claims
  • 3 Assignments
Timeline View
Assignment View
    ×
    ×