Patent ID: 7194405

Claim:
A computer based method for supplying comparative information about at least two specified items out of a group of items belonging to any one category, each item of the group having a corresponding data entry in the computer's storage, the data entry including a name, at least one topic and information associated with each topic, said information including at least one value, the method comprising: retrieving from storage data entries corresponding to the specified items; among said retrieved entries comparing information associated with like topics; constructing one or more natural language sentences that reflect results of said retrieving and said comparing, by steps including: providing a plurality of natural language sentence templates, whereby each possible combination of a topic and category of items is associated with a particular template, and inserting names, topics and values resulting from said comparing into appropriate respective fields in an appropriate one of said templates; and presenting said natural language sentences to a user at a display; wherein not all stored data entries of any group necessarily include identical topics and said comparing includes comparing values associated with like topics, if any; wherein said comparing includes, for any topic common to at least two of the retrieved entries- (i) finding within said at least two of the retrieved entries any values that are mutually equal, grouping all items that correspond to any thus identified value together as a similarity group, noting their names and associating said group with said common topic and with said equal value; and (ii) if no equal values are found, noting the names and values of all corresponding items, in association with said common topic; wherein said constructing includes constructing a natural language statement for each of said common topics which reflects respective results of substep (i) or substep (ii); the method further comprising: (iii) identifying any topic that is not common to any two or more of the retrieved entries, and noting one or more values associated with the thus identified topic in the respective entry, together with the respective name; and (iv) constructing a natural language statement that includes the name, topic and values noted in substep (iii).