Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Eric Robert Hawley

William John Blewett

Michael Philip Arcuri

Charles G Moore

David C Gerlt

Searching a file in a format unsupported by a search engine by creating term-topic links with associated probabilities. A file is retrieved comprising a compressed HTML file or a webpage. The file is parsed to retrieve data associated with title tags and body tags. In addition, user queries are received so that the user may associate a query with the title data. Term-topic links are created by linking terms from the retrieved data and the query with a topic. Heuristics are then used to determine the probability associated with each term-topic link. Term-topic links having a term containing nouns are assigned a higher probability than verbs, verbs are assigned a higher probability than adjectives, and adjectives and adverbs are assigned the same probability. The term-topic links are trained by adjusting the assigned probabilities based on a user defined query and an associated target topic.

Method for searching a file having a format unsupported by a search engine

A on-line help module provides a method and apparatus for the presenting of recognizable topic titles to a user in response to receiving a query. The system receives a query from a user and analyzes the query with a word breaking routine so to obtain a list of keyword terms that are substantively representative of the query. Based on the list of keyword terms, certain links are located in a database that serve to link the keyword terms to relevant topic titles. A link list is formed of all the relevant links and sorted. The links also include specific substitution information associated with them for application to the associated topic title. A substitution list is formed containing all the substitution information from the various links that were located. From the substitution list, all conflicts among the substitution information are removed and, thereafter, the substitutions are performed on the topic titles in accordance with the substitution information and presented to the user. The substitutions are directed toward swapping specified text into the topic titles in a manner such that terms that are the same as or similar to the terms initially used in the user's query will appear in the topic titles when presented to the user.

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Eric Robert Hawley