Patent ID: 6829603
Filing Date: 2004-12-07
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
A computer system with one or more memories, one or more central processing units (CPU), and one or more network interfaces, the system further comprising:a content database stored on one or more of the memories, the content database having a content organization; one or more presentation manager modules that present information from the computer system to one or more users over one or more of the network interfaces and accept queries from one or more of the users using one or more modalities over one or more of the network interfaces; a a parsing engine that parses one or more natural language phrases received over one or more of the network interfaces by one or more of the presentation managers, the natural language phrases being parsed into one or more logical forms, each logical form having a grammatical and structural organization; a dialog manager module that maintains and directs interactive sessions between each of the users and the computer system by iteratively: receiving logical forms from one or more of the presentation managers, performing a discourse analysis on these logical forms, selectively generating follow-up questions, said follow-up questions being presented to a respective user after each iteration until said dialog manager determines further clarification is unneeded, sending action requests to an action manager responsive to a determination that further clarification is unneeded, receiving action results from the action manager, and sending presentation requests to one or more of the presentation managers; an action manager module that receives action requests from the dialog manager, performs the action, and sends the action results to the dialog manager, and a taxonomical mapping process that associates the logical forms of the natural language phrases to the content organization of the content database.