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Automatic topic identification and switch for natural language search of textual document collections

  • US 6,574,624 B1
  • Filed: 08/18/2000
  • Issued: 06/03/2003
  • Est. Priority Date: 08/18/2000
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method for automatic topic identification and switch for natural language search of textual document collections comprising the steps of:

  • receiving a user'"'"'s textual free-form natural language input query;

    maintaining a session history of previous input queries by the user;

    interpreting the user'"'"'s input query in the context of the session history by the further steps of;

    combining said input query with said previous input queries to create combined input;

    creating combined search terms from the combined input;

    using the combined search terms to search prior results (PR) and return new results (NR); and

    detecting an implicit change in topic based on the session history, said prior results (PR) and said new results (NR) in response to said input query, wherein the step of detecting an implicit change in topic is performed by determining if the set of new search results (NR) based on the combined search terms is empty; and

    iteratively drilling-down on successive queries in the context of previous queries on a topic by searching within a previously determined set of previous responses to narrow the documents within the search if there is no implicit change in topic.

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