Method of and system for inferring user intent in search input in a conversational interaction system

• US 10,592,575 B2
• Filed: 08/04/2016
• Issued: 03/17/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 07/20/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Veveo, Inc. (Adeia Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Veveo, Inc. (Adeia Inc.)
• Inventors: Barve, Rakesh, Aravamudan, Murali, Venkataraman, Sashikumar, Welling, Girish
• Primary Examiner(s): Uddin, Mohammed R
• Application Number:
  US15/228,847
• Publication Number:
  US 20160342702A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,321 Days
• Field of Search: 707708, 707733, 707734, 707771, 707780
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2457 with adaptation to user needs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24573 using data annotations, e.g. user-defined metadata
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/84 Mapping; Conversion
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/10 Text processing natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30; processing or translation of natural language G06F40/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/237 Lexical tools
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/295 Named entity recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/40 Processing or translation of natural language natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30

Abstract

A method of inferring user intent in search input in a conversational interaction system is disclosed. A method of inferring user intent in a search input includes providing a user preference signature that describes preferences of the user, receiving search input from the user intended by the user to identify at least one desired item, and determining that a portion of the search input contains an ambiguous identifier. The ambiguous identifier is intended by the user to identify, at least in part, a desired item. The method further includes inferring a meaning for the ambiguous identifier based on matching portions of the search input to the preferences of the user described by the user preference signature and selecting items from a set of content items based on comparing the search input and the inferred meaning of the ambiguous identifier with metadata associated with the content items.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of inferring user intent in a search input, the method comprising:

receiving a search input from a user at one or more processors, the search input used to identify at least one desired content item of a set of content items, each of the content items being associated with at least one domain;

determining by the one or more processors that a first portion of the search input contains a linguistic element that has a plurality of possible meanings;

calculating a first weight based on a distance between a first node of a first graph data structure corresponding to the first portion of the search input and a second node of the first graph data structure corresponding to a second portion of the search input, wherein the first graph data structure comprises nodes connected by relationships, and wherein the first graph data structure is relevant to a first domain;

calculating a second weight based on a distance between a first node of a second graph data structure corresponding to the first portion of the search input and a second node of the second graph data structure corresponding to the second portion of the search input, wherein the second graph data structure comprises nodes connected by relationships, and wherein the second graph data structure is relevant to a second domain;

determining by the one or more processors one of the first domain or the second domain as being a relevant domain to the search input based on a comparison of the first weight and the second weight;

selecting by the one or more processors at least one content item from the set of content items based on the search input, the relevant domain, and metadata associated with the content items; and

causing to be provided information corresponding to the at least one desired content item.

2. The method of claim 1, the at least one domain including media entertainment and the metadata including at least one of crew, characters, actors, teams, leagues, tournaments, athletes, composers, music artists, performers, albums, songs, news personalities, and content distributors.

3. The method of claim 1, the at least one domain including electronic mail and the metadata including at least one of electronic mail threads, contacts, senders, recipients, company names, business departments, business units, electronic mail folders, and office location information.

4. The method of claim 1, the at least one domain including travel-related information and the metadata including at least one of cities, hotels, hotel brands, individual points of interest, categories of points of interest, retail chains, car rental websites, and car rental company names.

5. The method of claim 1, the at least one domain including electronic commerce and the metadata including at least one of product items, product categories, product subcategories, product brand, and retail stores.

6. The method of claim 1, the at least one domain including network-based documents and the metadata including at least one of domain names, internet media types, filenames, directories, and filename extensions.

7. The method of claim 1, the at least one domain including address book information and the metadata including at least one of contact names, electronic mail address, telephone number, address, and employer.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a user preference signature, the user preference signature describing preferences of the user for at least one of (i) particular content items and (ii) metadata associated with the content items, wherein the selecting the at least one content item from the set of content items is further based on comparing portions of the search input to the preferences of the user described by the user preference signature.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a user preference signature, the user preference signature describing preferences of the user for at least one of (i) particular content items and (ii) metadata associated with the content items; and

ordering the at least one content item based on the preferences of the user described by the user preference signature.

10. The method of claim 1, the metadata associated with the content items including a mapping of relationships between entities associated with the content items, and the determining by the one or more processors the one domain relevant to the search input being based in part on the mapping of relationships and the search input.

11. A system for inferring user intent in a search input, the system comprising:

a processor configured to;

receive a search input from a user, the search input used to identify at least one desired content item of a set of content items, each of the content items being associated with at least one domain;

determine that a first portion of the search input contains a linguistic element that has a plurality of possible meanings;

calculate a first weight based on a distance between a first node of a first graph data structure corresponding to the first portion of the search input and a second node of the first graph data structure corresponding to a second portion of the search input, wherein the first graph data structure comprises nodes connected by relationships, and wherein the first graph data structure is relevant to a first domain;

calculate a second weight based on a distance between a first node of a second graph data structure corresponding to the first portion of the search input and a second node of the second graph data structure corresponding to the second portion of the search input, wherein the second graph data structure comprises nodes connected by relationships, and wherein the second graph data structure is relevant to a second domain;

determine one of the first domain or the second domain as being a relevant domain to the search input based on a comparison of the first weight and the second weight;

select at least one content item from the set of content items based on the search input, the relevant domain, and metadata associated with the content items; and

causing to be provided information corresponding to the at least one desired content item.

12. The system of claim 11, the at least one domain including media entertainment and the metadata including at least one of crew, characters, actors, teams, leagues, tournaments, athletes, composers, music artists, performers, albums, songs, news personalities, and content distributors.

13. The system of claim 11, the at least one domain including electronic mail and the metadata including at least one of electronic mail threads, contacts, senders, recipients, company names, business departments, business units, electronic mail folders, and office location information.

14. The system of claim 11, the at least one domain including travel-related information and the metadata including at least one of cities, hotels, hotel brands, individual points of interest, categories of points of interest, retail chains, car rental websites, and car rental company names.

15. The system of claim 11, the at least one domain including electronic commerce and the metadata including at least one of product items, product categories, product subcategories, product brand, and retail stores.

16. The system of claim 11, the at least one domain including network-based documents and the metadata including at least one of domain names, internet media types, filenames, directories, and filename extensions.

17. The system of claim 11, the at least one domain including address book information and the metadata including at least one of contact names, electronic mail address, telephone number, address, and employer.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to provide a user preference signature, the user preference signature describing preferences of the user for at least one of (i) particular content items and (ii) metadata associated with the content items, wherein the selecting the at least one content item from the set of content items is further based on comparing portions of the search input to the preferences of the user described by the user preference signature.

19. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to:

provide a user preference signature, the user preference signature describing preferences of the user for at least one of (i) particular content items and (ii) metadata associated with the content items; and

order the at least one content item based on the preferences of the user described by the user preference signature.

20. The system of claim 11, the metadata associated with the content items including a mapping of relationships between entities associated with the content items, and wherein the processor is further configured to determine the one domain relevant to the search input based in part on the mapping of relationships and the search input.