The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 24, 2000
Filed:
Jul. 31, 1997
Stephen D Richardson, Redmond, WA (US);
Lucy Vanderwende, Bellevue, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
The present invention provides a facility for determining, for a semantic relation that does not occur in a lexical knowledge base, whether this semantic relation should be inferred despite its absence from the lexical knowledge base. This semantic relation to be inferred is preferably made up of a first word, a second word, and a relation type relating the meanings of the first and second words. In a preferred embodiment, the facility identifies a salient semantic relation having the relation type of the semantic relation to be inferred and relating the first word to an intermediate word other than the second word. The facility then generates a quantitative measure of the similarity in meaning between the intermediate word and the second word. The facility further generates a confidence weight for the semantic relation to be inferred based upon the generated measure of similarity in meaning between the intermediate word and the second word. The facility may also generate a confidence weight for the semantic relation to be inferred based upon the weights of one or more paths connecting the first and second words.