US5956739A
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US
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System for text correction adaptive to the text being corrected
Assignee: Yeda Research and Development Co Ltd
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Filing: 1996-06-25
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Granted: 1999-09-21
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Expires: 2016-06-25
Abstract
Abstract A system is provided for correcting users' mistakes including context-sensitive spelling errors and the like in which an adaptive correction algorithm is utilized which is trained on not only a conventional training corpus, but also on the text which is being corrected, thus to permit the correction of words based on the particular usages of the words in the text being corrected, taking advantage of the fact that the text to be corrected is by and large already mostly correct.
Inventors
- 👤 Andrew R. Golding
- 👤 Dan Roth
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
US
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-11-08 18:53
CPC Classifications
G; G06; G06F; G06F40/00; G06F40/20; G06F40/232
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 25
Claim 1
Independent Claim
154 words
A system for providing context sensitive word correction in which the context of a word in a sentence is utilized to determine which of several alternative or possible correctly-spelled words was intended, comprising: a conventional training corpus; a target text having errors in which the word usage is mostly correct, but sometimes incorrect; means for combining said conventional training corpus and said target text into a combined corpus; means coupled to said combined corpus for ascertaining the probability that a word in said target text is the correct word based on the occurrence of said word in said combined corpus, such that context sensitive word correction is trained not only on a conventional training corpus, but also on a target text which contains word usage errors whereby the correspondence of said training corpus to said target text need not be strong, and whereby there is no user supplied feedback to supervise the training process.
Claim 2
Independent Claim
154 words
A system for providing context sensitive word correction in which the context of a word in a sentence is utilized to determine which of several alternative or possible correctly-spelled words was intended, comprising: a conventional training corpus; a target text having errors in which the word usage is mostly correct, but sometimes incorrect; means for combining said conventional training corpus and said target text into a combined corpus; means coupled to said combined corpus for ascertaining the probability that a word in said target text is the correct word based on the occurrence of said word in said combined corpus, such that context sensitive word correction is trained not only on a conventional training corpus, but also on a target text which contains word usage errors whereby the correspondence of said training corpus to said target text need not be strong, and whereby there is no user supplied feedback to supervise the training process.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
57 words
The system of claim 1, and further including means for extracting a feature from said combined corpus and wherein said means for ascertaining the probability that a word in said target text is the correct word includes means coupled to said feature for altering said probability based on the occurrence of said feature in said target text.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
12 words
The system of claim 2, wherein said feature is a context word.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
11 words
The system of claim 2, wherein said feature is a collocation.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
46 words
The system of claim 2, wherein said means for ascertaining the probability that a word in said target text is the correct word includes means for updating the probability that a word could have been intended for the target word via the application of Bayes' rule.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
80 words
The system of claim 2, wherein said means for ascertaining the probability that a word in said target text is the correct word includes means for assigning an initial probability to a word that could have been intended for the target word in accordance with the ratio of the probability that said word occurred in said combined corpus to the probability that any of the words that could have been intended for the target word occurred in said combined corpus.
Claim 8
Independent Claim
47 words
A method of correcting target text, comprising the steps of: analyzing uncorrected target text to create a training corpus; and applying the training corpus to the uncorrected target text to identify a first word as an erroneous word to be replaced to correct the uncorrected target text.
Claim 9
Independent Claim
47 words
A method of correcting target text, comprising the steps of: analyzing uncorrected target text to create a training corpus; and applying the training corpus to the uncorrected target text to identify a first word as an erroneous word to be replaced to correct the uncorrected target text.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
25 words
The method according to claim 7, further comprising the step of: replacing the identified first word with a second to correct the uncorrected target text.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
24 words
The method according to claim 8, wherein the first word is a correctly spelled word and the second word is a correctly spelled word.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
18 words
The method according to claim 7, wherein the first word is erroneous based upon a context-sensitive spelling error.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
28 words
The method according to claim 7, wherein the analyzing of the uncorrected target text includes determining correct contextual use of the second word in the uncorrected target text.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim
28 words
The method according to claim 7, wherein: the analyzing includes determining rules of use for the second word; and the corpus corresponds to the determined rules of use.
Claim 15
Dependent Claim
82 words
The method according to claim 7, wherein the training corpus is a first training corpus and further comprising the steps of: replacing the identified first word with a second to correct the uncorrected target text; applying a second training corpus, created by analyzing training text different than the uncorrected target text, to the uncorrected target text to identify a third word as an erroneous word; and replacing the identified third word with a fourth word to further correct the uncorrected target text.
Claim 16
Dependent Claim
23 words
The method according to claim 13, wherein the third word is a misspelled word and the fourth word is a correctly spelled word.
Claim 17
Dependent Claim
26 words
The method according to claim 7, wherein: the analyzing includes identifying inconsistencies in the uncorrected target text; and the training corpus corresponds to the identified inconsistencies.
Claim 18
Dependent Claim
41 words
The method according to claim 7, wherein the analyzing includes determining features that characterize a context in which the first word appears in the uncorrected target text and a context in which the second word appears in the uncorrected target text.
Claim 19
Dependent Claim
64 words
The method according to claim 16, wherein the determined features include at least one of: a particular key word occurring within a distance of the first word and within the same distance of the second word in the uncorrected target text, and a pattern of part-of-speech and specific words within a context of the first word and within a context of the second word.
Claim 20
Dependent Claim
30 words
The method according to claim 16, wherein the analyzing further includes eliminating those of the features which are determined on the basis of less than a threshold amount of data.
Claim 21
Independent Claim
71 words
A system for replacing a word within uncorrected target text with another word to correct the uncorrected target text, comprising: a training corpus created from uncorrected target text; and a buffer configured to store the uncorrected target text including a first word which is an erroneous word, and to replace, the first word with a second word, determined on the basis of the training corpus, to correct the uncorrected target text.
Claim 22
Independent Claim
71 words
A system for replacing a word within uncorrected target text with another word to correct the uncorrected target text, comprising: a training corpus created from uncorrected target text; and a buffer configured to store the uncorrected target text including a first word which is an erroneous word, and to replace, the first word with a second word, determined on the basis of the training corpus, to correct the uncorrected target text.
Claim 23
Dependent Claim
24 words
The system according to claim 19, wherein the first word is a correctly spelled word and the second word is a correctly spelled word.
Claim 24
Dependent Claim
18 words
The system according to claim 19, wherein the first word is erroneous based upon a context-sensitive spelling error.
Claim 25
Dependent Claim
73 words
The system according to claim 19, wherein the training corpus is a first training corpus and further comprising: a second training corpus created from other than the uncorrected target text; the uncorrected target text includes a third word which is an erroneous word; and the buffer is further configured to replace the third word with a fourth word, determined on the basis of the second training corpus, to correct the uncorrected target text.
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USPTO Annuity & Maintenance Windows
| Annuity Stage | Window Opens | Payment Deadline | Surcharge Period Until | Estimated Fee | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.5 Years (Year 4) | 2002-09-20 | 2003-03-22 | 2003-09-21 | $2000.00 | Window Closed / Lapsed |
| 7.5 Years (Year 8) | 2006-09-20 | 2007-03-22 | 2007-09-21 | $3760.00 | Window Closed / Lapsed |
| 11.5 Years (Year 12) | 2010-09-20 | 2011-03-22 | 2011-09-21 | $7700.00 | Window Closed / Lapsed |