Method and system to answer a natural-language question

a natural language and question technology, applied in the field of methods and systems to answer questions, can solve the problems of requiring almost days to go through every single site, affecting and limited number of responses, so as to improve the relevancy of responses

Inactive Publication Date: 2002-09-12
IP LEARN +3
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

0009] The present invention provides methods and systems that can quickly provide a handful of accurate responses to a natural-language question. The responses can depend on additional information about the user and about the subject matter of the question so as to signifi

Problems solved by technology

It would take practically days to go through every single site to find our answer, especially if our network connections are through relatively low speed modems.
Another challenge faced by users of many search engines is to search by key words.
Unfortunately, this is unnatural.
Some of them also provide limited number of responses.
However, their responses are inaccurate, and typically do not provide satisfa

Method used

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  • Method and system to answer a natural-language question

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embodiment 150

[0036] FIG. 4A shows one physical embodiment 150 implementing one embodiment of the invention, preferably in software and hardware. The embodiment 150 includes a server computer 152 and a number of client computers, such as 154, which can be a personal computer. Each client computer communicates to the server computer 152 through a dedicated communication link, or a computer network 156. In one embodiment, the link can be the Internet, intranet or other types of private-public networks.

[0037] FIG. 4B shows one embodiment of a client computer 154. It typically includes a bus 159 connecting a number of components, such as a processing unit 160, a main memory 162, an I / O controller 164, a peripheral controller 166, a graphics adapter 168, a circuit board 180 and a network interface adapter 170. The I / O controller 164 is connected to components, such as a harddisk drive 172 and a floppy disk drive 174. The peripheral controller 166 can be connected to one or more peripheral components, ...

fourth embodiment

[0038] Different elements in the system 50 may be in different physical components. For example, the input device 52 and the output device 56 may be in a client computer; and the answer generator 54 may reside in a server computer. In another embodiment, the input device 52, the output device 56, the answer generator 54 other than the database 90 are in a client computer; and the database 90 is in a server computer. In another situation, the database 90 can reside in a storage medium in a client computer, or with part of it in the client computer and another part in the server computer. In a fourth embodiment, the system 50 is in a client computer. Yet in another embodiment, the input device 52 and the output device 56 are in a client computer; the answer generator 54 other than the database 90 is in a middleware apparatus, such as a Web server; and the database 90 with its management system are in a back-end server, which can be a database server. Note that different elements of th...

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Abstract

Providing methods and systems to quickly and accurately respond to a natural-language question. The responses to the question can depend on additional information about the user asking the question, and the subject matter of the question the user asked. For example, the system knows that the user understands French, and can supply French answers to the user. Such additional information can improve on relevancy of the responses to the question. More than one responses can be provided to the user to allow the user to pick the more appropriate one. One embodiment uses a computer with a database having many phrases and question formats. The computer identifies phrases in the question based on at least one grammatical rules and phrases in the database. Then the computer links the phrases to categories based on at least one semantic rule, the subject matter of the question, and information about the user, such as previous questions asked by the user. The computer then selects at least two question formats based on at least the scores. After the question formats are selected, the system allows the user to pick at least one of the question formats so as to have an answer to the question generated.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001] The present invention is a continuation-in-part of co-pending U.S. application entitled, "Learning Method and System Based on Questioning III", filed on Jul. 2, 1999, invented by Chi Fai Ho and Peter Tong, and having a Ser. No. of 09 / 347,184, which is hereby incorporated by reference into this application.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002] The present invention relates generally to methods and systems to answer a question, and more particularly to methods and systems to accurately answer a natural-language question.[0003] Numerous search engines in the market have provided us with an unprecedented amount of freely-available information. All we have to do is to type in our questions, and we will be inundated by information. For example, there is a search engine that regularly gives us tens of thousands of Web sites to a single question. It would take practically days to go through every single site to find our answer, especially if our netw...

Claims

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Application Information

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IPC IPC(8): G09B5/00G09B7/00G09B7/04
CPCG09B5/00G09B7/00G09B7/04Y10S706/927
Inventor HO, CHI FAITONG, PETER P.
Owner IP LEARN
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