Combined term and vector proximity text search
AssigneeLuminoso Technologies, Inc.
InventorsRobert Speer, Lance Nathan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system and related method are disclosed for searching a data set made up of a set of documents, a set of terms, and a vector associated with each term and each document. The method involves converting a search query to a vector in the vector space spanned by the term and document vectors, and combining vector-proximity searching and term searching to produce a set of results, which may be ranked according to various measures of relatedness to the query. Excerpts from each document in the result set may be displayed that contain the greatest term importance.
Claims18
A method performed by at least one electronic device, said device having a processor, a memory, and a display means, for searching a data set containing terms, documents, and vectors, comprising:
- maintaining in said memory a data set comprising a set of documents, a set of terms, and a set of vectors, such that each term and each document is associated with one vector from said set of vectors, said vectors together defining a vector space;
- providing a query comprising at least one term from said set of terms;
- converting said query into a query vector in said vector space;
- producing vector-matching results by finding similar document vectors to said query vector in said vector space and maintaining the identity of said document vectors in said memory;
- producing term-searching results by searching documents from said document set for at least one term comprising said query and maintaining the results of said searching in said memory;
- and
- displaying said vector-matching results and said term-searching results via said display means.
A system for searching a data set containing terms, documents, and vectors, comprising one electronic device, or a set of two or more electronic devices linked by a network, each electronic device having display means, a memory, and a processor, said processors together or singly operable to execute instructions to perform functions comprising:
- A Data Storage Component, configured to:
- maintain in said memory a data set comprising a set of documents, a set of terms, and a set of vectors, such that each term and each document is associated with one vector from said set of vectors, said vectors together defining a vector space;
- maintain vector-matching results in said memory;
- and
- maintain term-searching results in said memory;
- and
- A Processing Component, configured to:
- convert a provided query into a query vector in said vector space;
- produce said vector-matching results by finding similar document vectors to said query vector in said vector space;
- and
- produce said term-searching results by searching documents from said document set for at least one term comprising said query;
- and
- A Display Component, configured to:
- display said vector-matching results and said term-searching results via said display means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.