USING STATISTICAL LANGUAGE MODELS FOR CONTEXTUAL LOOKUP

• US 20120166429A1
• Filed: 12/22/2010
• Published: 06/28/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Davidson, Douglas R., Moore, Jennifer Lauren, Ramerth, Brent D.
• Granted Patent: US 10,515,147 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/723
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24575 using context
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3326 using relevance feedback from the user, e.g. relevance feedback on documents, documents sets, document terms or passages
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/237 Lexical tools
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis

Abstract

Using a statistical language model to make information related to a word or other content of interest available is disclosed. An indication that a word or phrase is of interest is received. A contextual meta-information associated with the word or phrase of interest as used in context is used to make information related to the word or phrase of interest available, for example, by forming a more precise query and/or filtering search results based on the contextual meta-information.

Claims

1. A method of making related information available, comprising:

receiving an indication that a word or phrase is of interest;

using a contextual meta-information associated with the word or phrase of interest as used in context to make available information related to the word or phrase of interest.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the contextual meta-information comprises a part of speech or other metadata tag associated with the word or phrase.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the contextual meta-information comprises an indication of a named entity status of the word or phrase of interest.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the contextual meta-information comprises an metadata indicating a sense in which the word or phrase of interest is used.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating the contextual meta-information.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein generating the contextual meta-information comprises analyzing the word or phrase of interest and one or more additional words that occur in a same context as the word or phrase of interest.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein generating the contextual meta-information comprises using a statistical language model to determine one or more of a part of speech, a named entity status, and a word sense of the word or phrase of interest as used.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving an indication that a word or phrase is of interest includes receiving an indication that the word or phrase has been selected electronically in the context of a word processing or other electronic application document.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the contextual meta-information is used, in addition to the word or phrase of interest, to form a query specific to the manner in which the word or phrase of interest is used in context.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the contextual meta-information is used to post-process search results received in response to a query associated with the word or phrase of interest.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the post-processing comprises one or more of filtering, scoring, and ranking said search results.

12. A method of obtaining related information, comprising:

receiving an indication that a word or phrase is of interest;

providing via an application programming interface (API) the word or phrase of interest and one or more additional words comprising a context in which the word or phrase of interest is used; and

receiving in response a result comprising data determined to be related to the word or phrase of interest as used in context.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the API is associated with an application framework.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the contextual meta-information comprises a part of speech or other metadata tag associated with the word or phrase.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the processor is configured to generate the contextual meta-information.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the indication that the word or phrase is of interest comprises an indication that the word or phrase has been selected electronically in the context of the content data as displayed.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the processor is configured to use the contextual meta-information to form a query specific to the word or phrase as used in context.

19. The system of claim 13, wherein the processor is configured to use the contextual meta-information to post-process search results received in response to a query associated with the word or phrase of interest.

14. A system, comprising:

a display device configured to display a content data; and

a processor configured to;

receive an indication that a word or phrase comprising the displayed content data is of interest; and

use a contextual meta-information associated with the word or phrase of interest as used in context to make available information related to the word or phrase of interest.

20. A computer program product for making related information available, the computer program product being embodied in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and comprising computer instructions for:

receiving an indication that a word or phrase is of interest;

using a contextual meta-information associated with the word or phrase of interest as used in context to make available information related to the word or phrase of interest.