Patent · US Expired

Method for measuring thresholded relevance of a document to a specified topic

US5778363A · kind A · utility

126Cited by
2References
30Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateDec 30, 1996
Grant dateJul 7, 1998
Priority date
Expiry dateDec 30, 2016

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
  • CPC primaryY10S707/99935
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method is provided for specifying the representation of a document and determining the relevance of the document according to an externally defined topic profile. The topic profile includes one or more compound terms having a positive correlation with the topic of interest. Each compound term has a specified form such as capitalization, punctuation, number, or adjacency relation, that is either ignored by conventional indexing processes or requires substantial data overhead to track. The compound terms of the topic profile are tagged to indicate how corresponding terms are treated when identified in a document being analyzed. Application of the topic profile to a document generates a document representation in which compound terms present in the document are retained in their specified form. A similarity function between the document representation and the topic profile is calculated, and the result is compared to a relevance threshold associated with the topic profile. A document is deemed relevant to the topic when the similarity function meets or exceeds the threshold.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.