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:
Apr. 22, 2003
Filed:
Feb. 26, 1999
Lenox H. Brassell, Seattle, WA (US);
John W. Miller, Kirkland, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A natural language information retrieval (NLIR) system employing a hash table technique to reduce memory requirements and a proxy process module to improve processing speed on multi-processor platforms. The NLIR system includes a Dynamic Link Library (DLL) search engine annex that implements a number of improvements that allow the preexisting natural language processing (NLP) core code module to operate sufficiently fast in a limited-memory environment. The improvements relate to (1) reducing storage requirements, (2) increasing processing speed, (3) improved operation on multi-processor platforms, and (4) a trouble-shooting mechanism. The NLIR system includes three modes of operation. First, during index processing, the NLIR system prepares documents for NLP searching to create a group of searchable documents. Second, during question processing, the NLIR system receives a natural language question and, for each document in the group of searchable documents, computes a document score connoting the likelihood that the document includes an answer to the natural language question. Third, during debugging, the NLIR system receives trouble-shooting requests and returns diagnostic reports, such as a document trace report and a question trace report.