Opportunistically solving search use cases

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9824149-B2
Application number	US-201414259888-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 23, 2014
Priority date	Apr 23, 2014
Publication date	Nov 21, 2017
Grant date	Nov 21, 2017

Abstract

In one embodiment, a search query may be obtained. A set of one or more use cases may be determined based, at least in part, upon the search query. A set of one or more search results may be identified based, at least in part, upon the search query. Information that answers the search query for at least one of the set of use cases may be obtained, where the information has been derived from at least a subset of the set of search results. An indication of at least a portion of the information may be provided.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
obtaining a search query;
ascertaining a search context associated with the search query;
determining a set of one or more use cases based, at least in part, upon the search query and the search context, wherein each use case is associated with a set of query patterns that trigger the use case, wherein determining a set of one or more use cases based, at least in part, upon the search query and the search context includes:
ascertaining one or more query patterns based, at least in part, upon the search query and the search context; and
identifying at least a subset of use cases associated with the query patterns;

identifying a set of one or more search results based, at least in part, upon the search query, wherein identifying the set of search results includes identifying, for each query pattern-use case pair, a set of documents;
obtaining information that answers the search query for at least one of the set of use cases, the information being derived from at least a subset of the set of search results; and
providing an indication of at least a portion of the information.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the indication comprises at least a portion of the information.

3. The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
providing a list of at least a portion of the set of search results;
wherein the indication of at least a portion of the information is provided in conjunction with providing the list of at least a portion of the set of search results.

4. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein obtaining information that answers the search query for at least one of the set of use cases comprises:
for each query-use case pair, extracting text snippets from at least a subset of the set of search results; and
generating the information based, at least in part, upon the text snippets that have been extracted for each query-use case pair.

5. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein obtaining information that answers the search query for at least one of the set of use cases comprises:
for each query-use case pair, identifying a subset of the set of search results mapped to the query-use case pair and extracting text snippets from the subset of the set of search results; and
generating the information based, at least in part, upon the text snippets that have been extracted for each query-use case pair.

6. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein obtaining information that answers the search query for at least one of the set of use cases comprises:
retrieving, for each query-use case pair, at least a portion of previously stored information derived from at least a subset of the set of search results.

7. The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
maintaining, for each of a plurality of documents, a mapping between the document a corresponding set of (query, use case) pairs.

8. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein obtaining information that answers the search query for at least one of the set of use cases comprises:
for each query-use case pair, retrieving at least one text snippet stored in association with a document mapped to the query-use case pair; and
generating the information based, at least in part, upon the text snippet that has been retrieved for each query-use case pair.

9. An apparatus, comprising:
a processor; and
a memory, at least one of the processor or the memory being adapted for:
obtaining a search query;
determining a set of one or more use cases based, at least in part, upon the search query, wherein each use case is associated with a set of query patterns that trigger the use case, wherein determining a set of one or more use cases based, at least in part, upon the search query includes:
ascertaining one or more query patterns based, at least in part, upon the search query; and
identifying at least a subset of use cases associated with the query patterns;

identifying a set of one or more search results based, at least in part, upon the search query, wherein identifying the set of search results includes identifying, for each query pattern-use case pair, a set of documents;
obtaining information that answers the search query for at least one of the set of use cases, the information being derived from at least a subset of the set of search results; and
providing an indication of at least a portion of the information.

10. The apparatus as recited in claim 9 , at least one of the processor or the memory being adapted for performing operations, further comprising:
providing a list of at least a portion of the set of search results;
wherein the indication of at least a portion of the information is provided in conjunction with providing the list of at least a portion of the set of search results.

11. The apparatus as recited in claim 9 , wherein obtaining information that answers the search query for at least one of the set of use cases comprises:
for each query-use case pair, extracting text snippets from at least a subset of the set of search results; and
generating the information based, at least in part, upon the text snippets that have been extracted for each query-use case pair.

12. The apparatus as recited in claim 9 , wherein obtaining information that answers the search query for at least one of the set of use cases comprises:
for each query-use case pair, identifying a subset of the set of search results mapped to the query-use case pair and extracting text snippets from the subset of the set of search results; and
generating the information based, at least in part, upon the text snippets that have been extracted for each query-use case pair.

13. The apparatus as recited in claim 9 , wherein obtaining information that answers the search query for at least one of the set of use cases comprises:
retrieving, for each query-use case pair, at least a portion of previously stored information derived from at least a subset of the set of search results.

14. The apparatus as recited in claim 9 , wherein each use case is associated with an entity type.

15. The apparatus as recited in claim 9 , wherein the indication comprises at least a portion of the information.

16. A system, comprising:
means for determining a set of one or more use cases based, at least in part, upon a search query, wherein each use case is associated with a set of query patterns that trigger the use case, wherein determining a set of one or more use cases based, at least in part, upon the search query includes:
ascertaining one or more query patterns based, at least in part, upon the search query; and
identifying at least a subset of use cases associated with the query patterns;

means for identifying a set of one or more search results based, at least in part, upon the search query, wherein identifying the set of search results includes identifying, for each query pattern-use case pair, a set of documents;
means for obtaining information that answers the search query for at least one of the set of use cases, the information being derived from at least a subset of the set of search results; and
means for providing an indication of at least a portion of the information.

17. The system as recited in claim 16 , wherein obtaining information that answers the search query for at least one of the set of use cases comprises:
for each query-use case pair, extracting text snippets from at least a subset of the set of search results; and
generating the information based, at least in part, upon the text snippets that have been extracted for each query-use c

Assignees

• Yahoo Inc
• Excalibur Ip Llc

Inventors

• Kraft Reiner
• Chavan Viraj

Classifications

• G06F16/951 Primary

  Indexing; Web crawling techniques · CPC title

• G06F16/9538 Primary

  Presentation of query results · CPC title

• G06F17/30864 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30386

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F16/24

  Querying · CPC title