Patent ID: 7447667
Filing Date: 2008-11-04
Classification: G06N,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A computer system comprising: a computer processor linked to one or more users; an automated information system which is controlled by the computer processor, wherein the computer processor is adapted to receive the user request for information in one or more information domains supported by the automated information system, wherein the automated information system comprises a semantic network system that uses knowledge-based reasoning of information associated with the one or more information domains to perform an automated task in response to the user request and wherein the computer processor uses the automated information system to generate a response back to each users request in the form of a suggested action for addressing a given need or situation of the user or users, wherein the semantic network system comprises a memory system for storing computer readable program data and computer-executable program code, and the computer processor for processing the computer-readable program data and computer-executable program code to instantiate the semantic network system; wherein the computer-readable program data comprises: a semantic network comprising a logical structure that represents information relating to one or more information domains supported by the automated information system, the semantic network comprising at least one of a plurality of nodes from a predetermined set of node types, at least one of a plurality of links from a predetermined set of link types, and rules from a predetermined set of rule types, a subset of the rule types being matching rule types, each node and each link being associated with a of rules; and a network reasoning data structure comprising a reasoning type database having at least one of a plurality of regular expressions, each of the regular expressions being a class of sequences having at least three node types and two link types, wherein the network reasoning data structure further comprising a context being a set of rules; and wherein the computer-executable program code comprises a reasoning engine to process the computer-readable data and generate reasoning results to perform the automated task in response to the user request, wherein the reasoning engine comprises: an activator for activating one or more activated paths in the semantic network, the set of activated paths having a common starting node in the semantic network, a validator for selecting a subset of the activated paths being valid paths, each rule from the set of rule matching types that is associated with one or more path elements on each valid path being matched by one or more rules in the context; and a legal inferencer for selecting a subset of the set of valid paths being legal and valid paths, the legal and valid paths matching at least one of the regular expressions, wherein the legal and valid paths are processed for output as reasoning results that are used to perform the automated task in response to the user request.