Navigation in a hierarchical structured transaction processing system

• US 7,231,379 B2
• Filed: 11/19/2002
• Issued: 06/12/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/19/2002
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Guada Technologies LLC (IP Edge LLC)
• Original Assignee: Noema, Inc
• Inventors: Parikh, Prashant, Peters, Stanley
• Primary Examiner(s): Wu, Yicun
• Application Number:
  US10/299,359
• Publication Number:
  US 20040098381A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,666 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/2, 707/3, 707/4, 707/5, 707/6, 707/7, 707/8, 707/9, 707/10, 707/100, 707/101, 707/102, 707/103, 707/104.1
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/322 Trees
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• 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 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation

Abstract

A method performed in a system having multiple navigable nodes interconnected in a hierarchical arrangement involves receiving an input containing at least one word identifiable with at least one keyword, identifying at least one node, other than the first node, not directly connected to the first node, but associated with the at least one keyword, and jumping to the identified node. A transaction processing system having a hierarchical arrangement of nodes and is configured for user navigation among the nodes. The system has an inverted index correlating keywords with at least some nodes in the arrangement so that when the user provides an input in response to a verbal description and the response includes a meaningful word correlatable with a keyword, the system will identify at least one node correlated to the meaningful word by the inverted index and jump to that node without first traversing any other node.

Claims

1. A method performed in a system having multiple navigable nodes interconnected in a hierarchical arrangement comprising:

at a first node, receiving an input from a user of the system, the input containing at least one word identifiable with at least one keyword from among multiple keywords,

identifying at least one node, other than the first node, that is not directly connected to the first node but is associated with the at least one keyword, and

jumping to the at least one node.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing a verbal description associated with the at least one node to the user.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

searching a thesaurus correlating keywords with synonyms.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the searching further comprises:

identifying the at least one word as synonymous with the at least one keyword.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining that the at least one word is neither a keyword nor a synonym of any keyword; and

learning a meaning for the word so that the word will be treated as a learned synonym for at least one particular keyword of the multiple keywords.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising:

adding the word to a thesaurus so that, when the word is input by a subsequent user, the word will be treated as synonymous with the at least one particular keyword.

7. A method performed in connection with an arrangement of nodes representable as a hierarchical graph containing vertices and edges connecting at least two of the vertices, the method comprising:

receiving an input from a user as a response to a verbal description associated with a first vertex;

analyzing the input to identify a meaningful term that can be associated with at least one keyword;

selecting a vertex in the graph structure that is not connected by an edge to the first vertex, based upon an association between the meaningful term and the at least one keyword and a correlation between the at least one keyword and the vertex; and

jumping to the vertex.