Rule based navigation

• US 7,668,850 B1
• Filed: 06/07/2006
• Issued: 02/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle OTC Subsidiary LLC (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Inquira Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Bierner, Gann Alexander
• Primary Examiner(s): Ali; Mohammad
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hocker; John P
• Application Number:
  US11/422,827
• Time in Patent Office: 1,357 Days
• Field of Search: 707/2, 707/3, 707/5, 707/7, 707/101, 707/102, 715/713
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/38 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation

Abstract

A navigation system is used in combination with a data retrieval system to more effectively locate the correct answers or information in search content. The navigation system provides taxonomies that identify different information categories and sub-categories (facets). Classifiers automatically classify the search content by identifying the content corresponding with associated facets. The facets, in conjunction with the associated classifiers, provide robust classification and correlation between both structured and unstructured content. Rules can be used in conjunction with the facets and classifiers to automatically control different navigation operations. The navigation system can also leverage ontologies to dynamically create taxonomies and provides unique facet expansion and intra-document classification operations.

Claims

1. A method for searching content, comprising:

submitting questions from a user to a data retrieval system;

receiving back at a computing system content from the data retrieval system associated with the submitted questions;

providing one or more taxonomies associated with the received content, each of the taxonomies identifying a hierarchical classification of the content in categories according to facets of the taxonomy;

providing a plurality of rules, each of the rules comprising a condition in a regular expression language and an associated action triggered when the condition is satisfied;

matching the regular expression language of the conditions with one or more words or concepts contained in the submitted questions;

satisfying the conditions of one or more of the rules when the regular expression language of the conditions of the one or more rules matches one or more of the words or concepts contained in a particular one of the submitted questions and extracting a range of values from the particular one of the submitted questions;

prior to displaying any of the content in response to the particular question, triggering the actions associated with the one or more rules having the conditions whose regular expression language matches the one or more of the words or concepts contained in the particular question, wherein the actions triggered by the one or more rules automatically select at least some of the facets, and wherein one of the associated actions triggered by the satisfied conditions is used to then select one or more of the facets in the taxonomies that cover the range of values extracted from the particular one of the submitted questions as one or more of the facets automatically selected by the actions triggered by the one or more rules;

subsequent to receiving back the content, classifying the content according to the facets automatically selected by the actions triggered by the one or more rules;

displaying only portions of the content associated by the classifying with the facets automatically selected by the actions triggered by the one or more rules.

2. The method according to claim 1 including specifying an operator in a rules facet reference of one of the associated actions triggered by the satisfied conditions that searches through the categories in the taxonomies to locate at least some of the facets automatically selected by the actions triggered by the one or more rules prior to displaying any of the facets or the content associated with the located facets.

3. The method according to claim 1 including:

extracting a price range from the particular question;

identifying ones of the facets that cover the price range extracted from the particular question; and

selecting the identified facets as the one or more of the facets automatically selected by the actions triggered by the one or more rules.

4. The method according to claim 1 including automatically performing the associated actions when concepts in the submitted questions satisfy the conditions.

5. The method according to claim 1 including:

specifying other conditions that are only satisfied when particular types of users enter the submitted questions; and

restricting the returned content by selecting additional ones of the facets according to the particular types of users satisfying the other conditions and further classifying the content according to the additional facets.

6. The method according to claim 1 including specifying an other condition that is satisfied when one of the facets is selected in the taxonomies.

7. The method according to claim 6 including displaying information other than the content classified with the facets automatically selected by the actions triggered by the one or more rules when the other condition is satisfied.

8. The method according to claim 7 including displaying promotional information not contained in the content classified with the automatically selected facets when the other condition is satisfied.

9. A content navigation system, comprising:

a computer configured to submit questions comprising words initially entered into the computer by a user to a data retrieval system, to receive back content associated with the submitted questions, and to provide one or more taxonomies associated with the received content, each of the taxonomies identifying a hierarchical classification of the content in categories according to facets of the taxonomy;

the computer further configured to;

provide a plurality of rules, each of the rules comprising a condition and an associated action triggered when the condition is satisfied;

satisfy one or more of the conditions of the rules by matching a type of the user that submitted a particular one of the submitted questions against at least some of the conditions and extract a range of values from the particular one of the submitted questions;

prior to displaying any of the content in response to the particular question, automatically select at least some of the facets by one or more of the associated actions triggered by the satisfied conditions, wherein one or more of the associated actions triggered by the satisfied conditions select at least some of the facets in the taxonomies that cover the range of values extracted from the particular one of the submitted questions as at least some of the facets automatically selected by the one or more of the associated actions triggered by the satisfied conditions;

subsequent to receiving back the content, classify the content according to the automatically selected facets; and

display only portions of the content associated by the classifying with the automatically selected facets.

10. The content navigation system according to claim 9 wherein the automatically selected facets are identified in the one or more of the associated actions triggered by the satisfied conditions, and the computer is further configured to search through the taxonomies for the automatically selected facets identified in the one or more of the associated actions triggered by the satisfied conditions.

11. The content navigation system according to claim 9 wherein the computer is further configured to:

extract a value from one of the submitted questions that satisfies one of the conditions; and

select as one or more additional ones of the automatically selected facets one or more of the facets in the taxonomies that are associated with the extracted value.

12. The content navigation system according to claim 11 wherein the computer is further configured to:

extract a range of values from the one of the submitted questions; and

select as the one or more additional ones of the automatically selected facets one or more of the facets in the taxonomies that cover the range of values extracted from the one of the submitted questions.

13. The content navigation system according to claim 9 wherein the computer is further configured to automatically perform the associated actions when concepts in the submitted questions satisfy the conditions.

14. The content navigation system according to claim 9 wherein the computer is further configured to identify types of users that enter the submitted questions and restrict the returned content using ones of the facets automatically selected according to the identified types of users.

15. The content navigation system according to claim 9 wherein the computer is further configured to identify when particular ones of the facets are selected in the taxonomies.

16. The content navigation system according to claim 15 wherein the additional information includes a promotion.

17. A method comprising:

receiving at a computer system a textual query from a user;

in response to the textual query, obtaining content according to the textual query from a data retrieval system;

satisfying a condition associated with a particular one of a plurality of rules by matching the textual query with the condition and extracting a range of values from the textual query;

in response to satisfying the condition, triggering an action associated with the particular rule;

automatically selecting one or more of a plurality of categories of a taxonomy, the one or more categories specified by the triggered action, wherein the action triggered by satisfying the condition is configured to select one or more of the plurality of categories of the taxonomy that cover the range of values extracted from the textual query as one or more of the plurality of categories automatically selected by the triggered action associated with the particular rule;

subsequent to obtaining the content from the data retrieval system, restricting the content according to the automatically selected categories to produce answers to the textual query, wherein the answers are restricted by the automatically selected categories to be less than all of the content;

displaying the answers; and

wherein the textual query is separately used to obtain the content from the data retrieval system and to satisfy the condition associated with the particular rule.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the automatically selected categories are distinct from words of the textual query.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the matching of the textual query against the condition uses a regular expression language.