Method and apparatus for concept searching using a Boolean or keyword search engine

Claim 2

A computer-readable medium on which is stored a computer program for preprocessing a document comprising one or more word tokens, the computer program comprising instructions which, when executed by a computer, perform the steps of: determining whether one of the word tokens in the document is contained in a concept database; in response to determining that one of the word token s is contained in the concept database, reading a plurality of concept identifiers associated with the word token from the concept database; and in response to reading the concept identifier, assigning the concept identifiers to unique non-word concept tokens, and embedding the concept tokens in the document for use by a search engine not otherwise capable of concept searching.

Claim 3

The computer-readable medium of claim 1 , further comprising the following steps after the assigning step: determining whether the document contains additional word tokens; and in response to determining that the document contains additional word tokens, incrementing to the next word token contained in said document and repeating from the first determining step.

Claim 4

A computer-readable medium on which is stored a computer program for preprocessing a document comprising one or more word tokens, the computer program comprising instructions which, when executed by a computer, perform the steps of: determining whether one of the word tokens is contained in a concept database; in response to determining that the word token is contained in the concept database, reading a plurality of concept identifiers associated with the word token from the concept database, and reading a numerical weight associated with the word token from the concept database; in response to reading the concept identifiers and weights, adding the numerical weights to the sum of any numerical weights for previous word tokens associated with the concept identifiers to create a sum of word token weights for each of the plurality of concept identifiers; in response to adding the weights, determining whether the document contains additional word tokens; in response to determining that the document contains additional word tokens, incrementing to the next word token contained in said document and repeating from the first determining step; and in response to determining that the document does not contain additional word tokens, normalizing the sums of word token weights for each of the plurality of concept identifiers, arranging each of the plurality of concept identifiers according to the value of said normalized sums of word token weights, converting each of the plurality of concept identifiers to unique concept tokens, and embedding the concept tokens in the document.

Claim 5

A computer-readable medium on which is stored a computer program for preprocessing a document comprising one or more word tokens, the computer program comprising instructions which, when executed by a computer, perform the steps of: determining whether one of the word tokens is contained in a concept database; in response to determining that the word token is contained in the concept database, reading a plurality of concept identifiers associated with the word token from the concept database, and reading a numerical weight associated with the word token from the concept database; in response to reading the concept identifiers and weights, adding the numerical weights to the sum of any numerical weights for previous word tokens associated with the concept identifiers to create a sum of word token weights for each of the plurality of concept identifiers; in response to adding the weights, determining whether the document contains additional word tokens; in response to determining that the document contains additional word tokens, incrementing to the next word token contained in said document and repeating from the first determining step; and in response to determining that the document does not contain additional word tokens, normalizing the sums of word token weights for each of the plurality of concept identifiers, arranging each of the plurality of concept identifiers according to the value of said normalized sums of word token weights, converting each of the plurality of concept identifiers to unique concept tokens, and embedding the concept tokens in the document.

Claim 6

A computer-readable medium on which is stored a computer program for preprocessing a query comprising one or more word tokens, the computer program comprising instructions which, when executed by a computer, perform the steps of: determining whether one of the word tokens in the query is contained in a concept database; in response to determining that the word token is contained in the concept database, reading concept identifiers associated with the word token from the concept database; and in response to reading concept identifiers, assigning the concept identifiers to unique non-word concept tokens and passing the concept identifiers to a search engine not otherwise capable of concept searching as search parameters.

Claim 7

A computer-readable medium on which is stored a computer program for preprocessing a query comprising one or more word tokens, the computer program comprising instructions which, when executed by a computer, perform the steps of: determining whether one of the word tokens in the query is contained in a concept database; in response to determining that the word token is contained in the concept database, reading concept identifiers associated with the word token from the concept database; and in response to reading concept identifiers, assigning the concept identifiers to unique non-word concept tokens and passing the concept identifiers to a search engine not otherwise capable of concept searching as search parameters.

Claim 8

The computer-readable medium of claim 4 , further comprising the following steps after the reading step and before the assigning step: determining whether the query contains additional word tokens; and in response to determining that the query contains additional word tokens, selecting the next word token contained in the query and repeating from the first determining step.

Claim 9

A computer-readable medium on which is stored a computer program for preprocessing a query comprising one or more word tokens, the computer program comprising instructions which, when executed by a computer, perform the steps of: determining whether one of the word tokens in the query is contained in a concept database; in response to determining that the word token is contained in the concept database, reading concept identifiers associated with the word token from the concept database; in response to reading concept identifiers, assigning the concept identifiers to unique concept tokens, and determining whether the query contains additional word tokens; in response to determining that the query contains additional word tokens, selecting the next word token contained in the query and repeating from the first determining step; and in response to determining that the query does not contain additional word tokens, assigning each concept token a normalized weight based upon the number of occurrences of each of the concept tokens, arranging each of the concept tokens according to the value of the normalized weights associated with said concept tokens, and passing the concept tokens and normalized weights to the search engine.

Claim 10

A computer-readable medium on which is stored a computer program for preprocessing a query comprising one or more word tokens, the computer program comprising instructions which, when executed by a computer, perform the steps of: determining whether one of the word tokens in the query is contained in a concept database; in response to determining that the word token is contained in the concept database, reading concept identifiers associated with the word token from the concept database; in response to reading concept identifiers, assigning the concept identifiers to unique concept tokens, and determining whether the query contains additional word tokens; in response to determining that the query contains additional word tokens, selecting the next word token contained in the query and repeating from the first determining step; and in response to determining that the query does not contain additional word tokens, assigning each concept token a normalized weight based upon the number of occurrences of each of the concept tokens, arranging each of the concept tokens according to the value of the normalized weights associated with said concept tokens, and passing the concept tokens and normalized weights to the search engine.

Claim 11

The computer-readable medium of claim 6 , wherein the arranging step further comprises removing concept tokens whose normalized weights are less than a threshold value.

Claim 14

The method of claim 8 , further comprising the following steps after the embedding step: determining whether the document contains additional word tokens; and in response to determining that the document contains additional word tokens, selecting the next word token in the document and repeating from the first determining step.

Claim 19

The method of claim 11 , further comprising the following steps after the reading step: determining whether the query contains additional word tokens; and in response to determining that the query contains additional word tokens, selecting the next word token in the query and repeating from the first determining step.

Claim 22

The method of claim 13 , wherein the arranging step further comprises removing concept tokens whose normalized weights are less than a threshold value.

Claim 23

A computer apparatus for preprocessing a document comprising one or more word tokens, the computer apparatus comprising: a processor; a storage unit coupled to the processor, the storage unit maintaining the document and a concept database comprising a plurality of word tokens associated with a plurality of concept identifiers; a memory coupled to the processor; the processor being operative to read one of the word tokens from the document; determine whether the word token is contained in the concept database; in response to determining that the word token is contained in the concept database, said processor operative to read concept identifiers associated with the word token from the concept database, to read a numerical weight associated with the word token from said concept database, to add the numerical weight to the sum of any numerical weights for any previous word tokens associated with said plurality of concept identifiers to create a sum of word token weights for each of said plurality of concept identifiers, and to determine whether the document contains additional word tokens; in response to determining that the document contains additional word tokens, said processor operative to read the next word token from said document and repeat from the first determining step; and in response to determining that the document does not contain additional word tokens, said processor operative to normalize the sums of word token weights for each of the plurality of concept identifiers, to arrange each of said plurality of concept identifiers according to the value of said normalized sums of word token weights, to convert each of said plurality of concept identifiers to unique concept tokens, and to embed the concept tokens in the document.

Claim 24

A computer apparatus for preprocessing a document comprising one or more word tokens, the computer apparatus comprising: a processor; a storage unit coupled to the processor, the storage unit maintaining the document and a concept database comprising a plurality of word tokens associated with a plurality of concept identifiers; a memory coupled to the processor; the processor being operative to read one of the word tokens from the document; determine whether the word token is contained in the concept database; in response to determining that the word token is contained in the concept database, said processor operative to read concept identifiers associated with the word token from the concept database, to read a numerical weight associated with the word token from said concept database, to add the numerical weight to the sum of any numerical weights for any previous word tokens associated with said plurality of concept identifiers to create a sum of word token weights for each of said plurality of concept identifiers, and to determine whether the document contains additional word tokens; in response to determining that the document contains additional word tokens, said processor operative to read the next word token from said document and repeat from the first determining step; and in response to determining that the document does not contain additional word tokens, said processor operative to normalize the sums of word token weights for each of the plurality of concept identifiers, to arrange each of said plurality of concept identifiers according to the value of said normalized sums of word token weights, to convert each of said plurality of concept identifiers to unique concept tokens, and to embed the concept tokens in the document.

Claim 25

A computer apparatus for preprocessing a query comprising one or more word tokens, the computer apparatus comprising: a processor; a storage unit coupled to the processor, the storage unit maintaining the query and a concept database comprising a plurality of word tokens associated with a plurality of concept identifiers; a memory coupled to the processor; the processor being operative to read one of the plurality of word tokens from the query; determine whether the word token is contained in the concept database; in response to determining that the word token is contained in the concept database, said processor operative to read concept identifiers associated with the word token from the concept database, to assign each of the concept identifiers to unique concept tokens, and to determine whether the query contains additional word tokens; in response to determining that the query contains additional word tokens, said processor operative to read the next word token contained in said query and repeat from the first determining step; and in response to determining that the query does not contain additional word tokens, said processor operative to assign each of the concept tokens a normalized weight based upon the number of occurrences of each of the concept tokens, to arrange each of the concept tokens according to the value of the normalized weights associated with the concept tokens, and to transmit the concept tokens and the normalized weights to the search engine.

Claim 26

A computer apparatus for preprocessing a query comprising one or more word tokens, the computer apparatus comprising: a processor; a storage unit coupled to the processor, the storage unit maintaining the query and a concept database comprising a plurality of word tokens associated with a plurality of concept identifiers; a memory coupled to the processor; the processor being operative to read one of the plurality of word tokens from the query; determine whether the word token is contained in the concept database; in response to determining that the word token is contained in the concept database, said processor operative to read concept identifiers associated with the word token from the concept database, to assign each of the concept identifiers to unique concept tokens, and to determine whether the query contains additional word tokens; in response to determining that the query contains additional word tokens, said processor operative to read the next word token contained in said query and repeat from the first determining step; and in response to determining that the query does not contain additional word tokens, said processor operative to assign each of the concept tokens a normalized weight based upon the number of occurrences of each of the concept tokens, to arrange each of the concept tokens according to the value of the normalized weights associated with the concept tokens, and to transmit the concept tokens and the normalized weights to the search engine.