Accessing information from a collection of data

• US 6,704,728 B1
• Filed: 05/02/2000
• Issued: 03/09/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: Iphase.com Incorporated
• Inventors: Lau, Raymond, Chang, Jane Wen, McCandless, Michael Kyle
• Primary Examiner(s): Breene, John
• Assistant Examiner(s): ALI, MOHAMMAD
• Application Number:
  US09/563,803
• Time in Patent Office: 1,407 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1-10, 707/100, 709/201, 709/219
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2228 Indexing structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/31 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/954 Relational
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/956 Hierarchical
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access

Abstract

A method of accessing information from a collection of data includes receiving a query, augmenting the query with canonical non-terminal concepts, generating an inverse index of the collection of data, the inverse index including canonical non-terminal representations of the data and generating results to the augmented query in conjunction with the inverse index.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of accessing information from a collection of data comprising:

receiving a query;

augmenting the query with canonical non-terminal concepts;

generating an inverse index of the collection of data, the inverse index including canonical non-terminal representations of the data; and

generating results to the augmented query in conjunction with the inverse index.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein generating the inverse index comprises:

storing a canonical non-terminal representation of the data in the inverse index.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 wherein generating the inverse index further comprises:

storing hierarchical information generated from the collection of data;

applying a parser and grammar rules to the collection of data to produce a canonical non-terminal representation of the data.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3 wherein augmenting the query comprises:

applying the parser and the grammar rules to the query to produce a query canonical form.

5. A computer program, residing on a computer-readable medium, comprising instructions for causing a computer to:

receive a query;

augment the query with canonical non-terminal concepts;

generate an inverse index of a collection of data, the inverse index including canonical non-terminal representations of the data; and

generate results to the augmented query in conjunction with the inverse index.

6. The computer program of claim 5 further comprising instructions for causing the computer to:

store hierarchical information generated from the data in the inverse index; and

apply a parser and grammar rules to the data to produce canonical non-terminal representations of the data in the inverse index.

7. The computer program of claim 6 further comprising instructions for causing the computer to:

apply the parser and grammar rules to the query to generate a query canonical form.

8. A method comprising:

augmenting a collection of data residing in a database with canonical non-terminal concepts;

receiving a query;

augmenting the query with canonical non-terminal concepts; and

generating answers to the augmented query using the augmented collection of data.

9. The method of claim 8 in which augmenting the collection comprises:

storing hierarchical information generated from the data in an inverse index; and

applying a parser and grammar rules to generate the canonical non-terminal concepts.

10. The method of claim 8 in which augmenting the query comprises applying a parser and grammar rules to generate the canonical non-terminal concepts.

11. The method of claim 10 in which augmenting the query further comprises adding related concepts.

12. The method of claim 8 in which generating answers comprises matching canonical non-terminal concepts of the query with canonical non-terminal concepts of the data.

13. The method of claim 8 in which the canonical non-terminal concepts include hierarchical relationships.

14. A computer program product, tangibly embodied in an information carrier, the computer program product being operable to cause data processing apparatus to do the following:

augment a collection of data residing in a database with canonical non-terminal concepts;

receive a query;

augment the query with canonical non-terminal concepts; and

generate answers to the augmented query using the augmented collection of data.