Patent ID: 7966291
Filing Date: 2011-06-21
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A computer-implemented method of merging objects stored in a memory and associated with a same entity, comprising: identifying a plurality of merge candidate objects, wherein each merge candidate object is created using facts extracted from one or more electronic documents, each fact comprises an attribute and a value, each merge candidate object comprises one or more facts describing an entity with which the object is associated, each merge candidate object includes at least one fact with a same attribute, and each merge candidate object is distinct from the one or more electronic documents and the entity associated with the object; grouping the plurality of merge candidate objects in accordance with values corresponding to the same attribute in the at least one fact, the grouping including assigning a respective merge candidate object to a respective group of a plurality of groups, the respective group corresponding to the value of the at least one fact with the same attribute in the respective merge candidate object; identifying similarities between objects in each group, the identifying including computing a similarity value that indicates an amount of similarity between a pair of objects in the group; generating one or more graphs describing identified similarities among the objects in all of the groups; analyzing the one or more graphs describing the similarities among the objects to identify two or more objects associated with the same entity; merging the two or more objects associated with the same entity to produce a merged object that includes facts of the two or more objects associated with the same entity; and storing the merged object in a repository in the memory.