Method and system for retrieving relevant documents from a database

Claim 3

The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of evaluating the similarity of the at least-one-candidate-document-sentence to the user-query on the basis of a location of the at-least-one-candidate-document-sentence relative to the public document.

Claim 4

The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of generating a derivative query-word, the derivative query-word being selected on the basis of an association with the query-word.

Claim 5

The method of claim 1 wherein the step of assessing the importance of the query-word comprises the steps of determining the overall concentration of the query-word in the plurality of candidate documents, determining the concentration of the query-word in the user-query, determining a query-conductance indicative of the importance of the query-word, the query-conductance varying with the concentration of the query-word in the user-query and varying inversely with the overall concentration of the query-word in the plurality of candidate documents.

Claim 6

The method of claim 1 wherein the step of evaluating the similarity of the candidate document to the user-query comprises the steps of determining the concentration of the query-word in the candidate document, assigning a document-conductance to the candidate document, the document-conductance being selected to vary with the concentration of the query-word in the candidate document.

Claim 7

The method of claim 1 wherein the step of evaluating the similarity of the at-least-one-candidate-document-sentence to the user-query comprises the steps of determining the overall concentration of the query-word in the plurality of candidate documents, determining the concentration of the query-word in the at-least-one-candidate-document-sentence assigning a position-independent sentence similarity to the at-least-one-candidate-document-sentence, the position-independent sentence similarity being responsive to the ratio of the overall concentration of the query-word in the plurality of candidate documents to the concentration of the query-word in the at-least-one-candidate-document-sentence.

Claim 8

A computer-readable medium containing software for ranking a plurality of candidate documents on the basis of the similarity each of the plurality of candidate documents to a user-query, said software comprising instruction for executing the steps of parsing the user-query, thereby generating a query-word and a distribution of the query-word in the user-query, assessing an importance of the query-word on the basis of the frequency with which the query-word occurs in the plurality of candidate documents, and the distribution of the query-word in the user-query, evaluating the similarity of a candidate document to the user-query on the basis of a distribution of the query-word in the candidate document, the candidate document having at least one candidate document sentence, evaluating the similarity of the at least one candidate document sentence to the user-query on the basis of the frequency with which the query-word occurs in the at least one candidate document sentence, ranking the candidate document relative to the plurality of candidate documents on the basis of the similarity of the candidate document to the user-query and the similarity of the at least one candidate document sentence to the user-query.

Claim 9

A computer-readable medium containing software for ranking a plurality of candidate documents on the basis of the similarity each of the plurality of candidate documents to a user-query, said software comprising instruction for executing the steps of parsing the user-query, thereby generating a query-word and a distribution of the query-word in the user-query, assessing an importance of the query-word on the basis of the frequency with which the query-word occurs in the plurality of candidate documents, and the distribution of the query-word in the user-query, evaluating the similarity of a candidate document to the user-query on the basis of a distribution of the query-word in the candidate document, the candidate document having at least one candidate document sentence, evaluating the similarity of the at least one candidate document sentence to the user-query on the basis of the frequency with which the query-word occurs in the at least one candidate document sentence, ranking the candidate document relative to the plurality of candidate documents on the basis of the similarity of the candidate document to the user-query and the similarity of the at least one candidate document sentence to the user-query.

Claim 10

The computer readable medium of claim 7 wherein the software further comprises instructions for executing the step of evaluating the similarity of the at-least-one-candidate-document-sentence to the user-query on the basis of a location of the at-least-one-candidate-document-sentence relative to the public document.

Claim 11

The computer readable medium of claim 7 wherein the software further comprises instructions for executing the step of generating a derivative query-word, the derivative query-word being selected on the basis of an association with the query-word.

Claim 12

The computer readable medium of claim 7 wherein the software further comprises instructions for executing the step of assessing an importance of the derivative query-word on the basis of the frequency with which the derivative query-word occurs in the plurality of candidate documents, and the distribution of the derivative query-word in the user-query.

Claim 13

The computer readable medium of claim 10 wherein the software further comprises instructions for executing the step of diminishing the importance of the derivative query-word relative to the importance of the query-word.

Claim 14

The computer readable medium of claim 7 wherein the software for executing the step of assessing the importance of the query-word comprises instructions for executing the steps of determining the overall concentration of the query-word in the plurality of candidate documents, determining the concentration of the query-word in the user-query, determining a query-conductance indicative of the importance of the query-word, the query-conductance varying with the concentration of the query-word in the user-query and varying inversely with the overall concentration of the query-word in the plurality of candidate documents.

Claim 15

The computer readable medium of claim 7 wherein the software for executing the step of evaluating the similarity of the candidate document to the user-query comprises software instructions for executing the steps of determining the concentration of the query-word in the candidate document, assigning a document-conductance to the candidate document, the document-conductance being selected to vary with the concentration of the query-word in the candidate document.

Claim 16

The computer readable medium of claim 7 wherein the software for executing the step of evaluating the similarity of the at-least-one-candidate-document-sentence to the user-query comprises software instruction for executing the steps of determining the overall concentration of the query-word in the plurality of candidate documents, determining the concentration of the query-word in the at-least-one-candidate-document-sentence assigning a position-independent sentence similarity to the at-least-one-candidate-document-sentence, the position-independent sentence similarity being responsive to the ratio of the overall concentration of the query-word in the plurality of candidate documents to the concentration of the query-word in the at-least-one-candidate-document-sentence.

Claim 17

The computer-readable medium of claim 7 wherein the software further comprises instructions for executing the step of retrieving the at-least-one authoritative document from a local storage device.

Claim 18

The computer-readable medium of claim 7 wherein the software further comprises instructions for executing the step of retrieving the at-least one authoritative document from a server on a network.

Claim 19

The computer-readable medium of claim 16 wherein the software further comprises instructions for selecting the network to be a corporate-wide network.

Claim 20

The computer-readable medium of claim 16 wherein the software further comprises instructions for selecting the network to be a global computer network.

Claim 21

The computer-readable medium claim 7 wherein the software further comprises instructions for executing the step of selecting the authoritative database from a plurality of authoritative databases.

Claim 22

A computer-implemented method for generating a list of candidate documents, said method comprising the steps of evaluating, on the basis of a search query, a relevance of an authoritative document selected from an authoritative database, evaluating, on the basis of the search query, a relevance of a public document from a public database, and including the public document in the list of candidate documents if the relevance of the public document exceeds a relevance threshold selected on the basis of the relevance of the authoritative document.

Claim 23

A computer-implemented method for generating a list of candidate documents, said method comprising the steps of evaluating, on the basis of a search query, a relevance of an authoritative document selected from an authoritative database, evaluating, on the basis of the search query, a relevance of a public document from a public database, and including the public document in the list of candidate documents if the relevance of the public document exceeds a relevance threshold selected on the basis of the relevance of the authoritative document.

Claim 24

The method of claim 20 wherein the first evaluating step comprises the steps of parsing the search query, thereby retrieving a query word and a distribution of the query word in the user-query, and assessing an importance of the query word on the basis of the authoritative document.

Claim 25

The method of claim 21 wherein the assessing step comprises the step of assessing the importance of the query word on the basis of the distribution of query words in the search query and the frequency with which the query word occurs in the public document.

Claim 26

The method of claim 21 wherein the step of evaluating a relevance of a public document comprises the step of evaluating the relevance of the public document on the basis of the distribution of the query word in the public document.

Claim 27

The method of claim 23 wherein the public document includes at least one sentence and the step of evaluating the relevance of the public document on the basis of the distribution of the query word comprises the step of evaluating the frequency with which the query word occurs in the at least one sentence.

Claim 28

The method of claim 21 wherein the step of assessing the importance of the query word comprises the steps of determining an overall concentration in the authoritative database of the query-word, determining a concentration of the query-word in the search-query, and determining a query-conductance indicative of the importance of the query-word, the query-conductance varying with the concentration of the query-word in the search-query and varying inversely with the overall concentration of the query-word in the authoritative database.

Claim 29

The method of claim 20 wherein the step of evaluating the relevance of the authoritative document to the search-query comprises the steps of determining the concentration in the authoritative document of the query-word, assigning a document-conductance to the authoritative document, the document-conductance being selected to vary with the concentration of the query-word in the authoritative document.

Claim 30

The method of claim 20 wherein the step of evaluating the similarity of the public document to the search-query comprises the steps of determining the concentration of the query-word in the public document, assigning a document-conductance to the public document, the document-conductance being selected to vary with the concentration of the query-word in the public document.

Claim 31

The method of claim 20 wherein the authoritative document includes at-least-one-authoritative-document sentence and the step of evaluating the relevance of the authoritative document to the search-query comprises the steps of determining the overall concentration of the query-word in the authoritative database, determining the concentration of the query-word in the at-least-one-authoritative-document sentence assigning a position-independent sentence similarity to the at-least-one-authoritative-document sentence, the position-independent sentence similarity being responsive to the ratio of the overall concentration of the query-word in the authoritative database to the concentration of the query-word in the at-least-one-authoritative-document sentence.

Claim 32

The method of claim 20 wherein the public document includes at-least-one-public-document sentence and the step of evaluating the relevance of a public document to the user-query comprises the steps of determining the overall concentration of the query-word in the authoritative database, determining the concentration of the query-word in the at-least-one-public-document sentence assigning a position-independent sentence similarity to the at-least-one-public-document sentence, the position-independent sentence similarity being responsive to the ratio of the overall concentration of the query-word in the public database to the concentration of the query-word in the at-least-one-public-document-sentence.

Claim 33

The method of claim 20 further comprising the step of retrieving the authoritative document from a local storage device.

Claim 34

The method of claim 20 further comprising the step of retrieving the authoritative document from a network.

Claim 35

The method of claim 31 further comprising the step of selecting the network to be a corporate-wide network.

Claim 36

The method of claim 31 further comprising the step of selecting the network to be a global computer network.

Claim 37

A computer-readable medium containing software for generating a list of candidate documents, the software comprising instructions for executing the steps of evaluating, on the basis of a search query, a relevance of an authoritative document selected from an authoritative database, evaluating, on the basis of the search query, a relevance of a public document, and including the public document in the list of candidate documents if the relevance of the public document exceeds a relevance threshold selected on the basis of the relevance of the authoritative document.

Claim 38

A computer-readable medium containing software for generating a list of candidate documents, the software comprising instructions for executing the steps of evaluating, on the basis of a search query, a relevance of an authoritative document selected from an authoritative database, evaluating, on the basis of the search query, a relevance of a public document, and including the public document in the list of candidate documents if the relevance of the public document exceeds a relevance threshold selected on the basis of the relevance of the authoritative document.

Claim 39

The computer-readable medium of claim 34 wherein the instructions for executing the first evaluating step comprise instructions for executing the steps of parsing the search query, thereby retrieving a query word and a distribution of the query word in the user-query, and assessing an importance of the query word on the basis of the authoritative document.

Claim 40

The computer-readable medium of claim 35 wherein the instructions for executing the assessing step comprise instructions for executing the step of assessing the importance of the query word on the basis of the distribution of query words in the search query and the frequency with which the query word occurs in the public document.

Claim 41

The computer-readable medium of claim 35 wherein the instructions for executing the step of evaluating a relevance of a public document comprise instructions for executing the step of evaluating the relevance of the public document on the basis of the distribution of the query word in the public document.

Claim 42

The computer-readable medium of claim 37 wherein the public document includes at least one sentence and the instructions for executing the step of evaluating the relevance of the public document on the basis of the distribution of the query word comprise instructions for executing the step of evaluating the frequency with which the query word occurs in the at least one sentence.

Claim 43

The computer-readable medium of claim 35 wherein the instructions for executing the step of assessing the importance of the query word comprise instructions for executing the steps of determining an overall concentration in the authoritative database of the query-word, determining a concentration of the query-word in the search-query, and determining a query-conductance indicative of the importance of the query-word, the query-conductance varying with the concentration of the query-word in the search-query and varying inversely with the overall concentration of the query-word in the authoritative database.

Claim 44

The computer-readable medium of claim 34 wherein the instructions for executing the step of evaluating the relevance of the authoritative document to the search-query comprise instructions for executing the steps of determining the concentration in the authoritative document of the query-word, assigning a document-conductance to the authoritative document, the document-conductance being selected to vary with the concentration of the query-word in the authoritative document.

Claim 45

The computer-readable medium of claim 34 wherein the instructions for executing the step of evaluating the similarity of the public document to the search-query comprise instructions for executing the steps of determining the concentration of the query-word in the public document, assigning a document-conductance to the public document, the document-conductance being selected to vary with the concentration of the query-word in the public document.

Claim 46

The computer-readable medium of claim 34 wherein the authoritative document includes at least one authoritative-document sentence and said instructions for executing the step of evaluating the relevance of the authoritative document to the search-query comprise instructions for executing the steps of determining the overall concentration of the query-word in the authoritative database, determining the concentration of the query-word in the at-least-one-authoritative-document sentence assigning a position-independent sentence similarity to the at-least-one-authoritative-document sentence, the position-independent sentence similarity being responsive to the ratio of the overall concentration of the query-word in the authoritative database to the concentration of the query-word in the at-least-one-authoritative-document sentence.

Claim 47

The computer-readable medium of claim 34 wherein the public document includes at least one public-document sentence and the instructions for executing the step of evaluating the relevance of a public document to the user-query comprise instructions for executing the steps of determining the overall concentration of the query-word in the authoritative database, determining the concentration of the query-word in the at-least-one-public-document sentence assigning a position-independent sentence similarity to the at-least-one-public-document sentence, the position-independent sentence similarity being responsive to the ratio of the overall concentration of the query-word in the public database to the concentration of the query-word in the at-least-one-public-document-sentence.

Claim 48

The computer-readable medium of claim 34 further comprising instructions for executing the step of retrieving the authoritative document from a local storage device.

Claim 49

The computer-readable medium of claim 34 further comprising instructions for executing the step of retrieving the authoritative document from a network.

Claim 50

The computer-readable medium of claim 45 further comprising instructions for executing the step of selecting the network to be a corporate-wide network.

Claim 51

The computer-readable medium of claim 45 further comprising instructions for executing the step of selecting the network to be a global computer network.