System, method and program product for answering questions using a search engine
US6665666B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Feb 1, 2000 |
| Grant date | Dec 16, 2003 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Feb 1, 2020 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
- CPC primaryY10S707/99935
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
The present invention is a system, method, and program product that comprises a computer with a collection of documents to be searched. The documents contain free form (natural language) text. We define a set of labels called QA-Tokens, which function as abstractions of phrases or question-types. We define a pattern file, which consists of a number of pattern records, each of which has a question template, an associated question word pattern, and an associated set of QA-Tokens. We describe a query-analysis process which receives a query as input and matches it to one or more of the question templates, where a priority algorithm determines which match is used if there is more than one. The query-analysis process then replaces the associated question word pattern in the matching query with the associated set of QA-Tokens, and possibly some other words. This results in a processed query having some combination of original query tokens, new tokens from the pattern file, and QA-Tokens, possibly with weights. We describe a pattern-matching process that identifies patterns of text in the document collection and augments the location with corresponding QA-Tokens. We define a text index dat…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.