Patent ID: 7212968
Filing Date: 2007-05-01
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for searching a database comprising a plurality of information entries to identify information to be retrieved therefrom, each of said plurality of information entries having an associated annotation comprising a sequence of annotation features, the apparatus comprising: a receiver operable to receive a plurality of renditions of an input query; a converter operable to convert each rendition of the input query into a sequence of query features representative of the rendition; a comparator operable to compare query features of each rendition with annotation features of each annotation to provide a set of comparison results; a combiner operable to combine the comparison results obtained by comparing the query features of each rendition with the annotation features of the same annotation to provide, for each annotation, a measure of the similarity between the input query and the annotation; and an identifier operable to identify said information to be retrieved from said database using the similarity measures provided by the combiner for all the annotations, wherein said comparator comprises: an aligner operable to align query features of each rendition with annotation features of a current annotation to form a number of aligned groups of features, each aligned group comprising a query feature from each rendition and an annotation feature; a feature comparator operable to compare the features of each aligned group of features to generate a comparison score representative of the similarity between the features of the aligned group; wherein said combiner is operable to combine the comparison scores for all the aligned groups of features for a current annotation to provide said measure of the similarity between the input query and the current annotation, and wherein said feature comparator comprises a respective feature sub-comparator for each feature in the aligned group, operable to compare the group feature with each of a plurality of features taken from a set of predetermined features, to provide a corresponding plurality of intermediate comparison scores representative of the similarity between said group feature and the respective features from the set; and a calculator operable to calculate said comparison score for the aligned group by combining the pluralities of intermediate comparison scores generated by the respective feature sub-comparator.