Patent ID: 7333998

Claim:
A computer-implemented system for automatically categorizing unknown incoming data and a category visualization (CV) system that displays a graphic representation of each category as a hierarchical map, comprising: a node corresponding to each base category; nodes corresponding to combinations of similar categories; a leaf node corresponding to a base category, the leaf node is positioned as a cluster of nodes at a lowest level of the hierarchy wherein combinations of similar categories are positioned on top of the leaf node, forming successively higher levels of the hierarchy; a root node corresponding to a category that contains all records in a collection, the root node forms top of the hierarchy; a non-leaf node corresponding to each combined category, wherein similar base categories are combined into a combined category; wherein each non-leaf node has two arcs that connect the non-leaf node to two nodes corresponding to sub-categories of the combined category; and wherein if a node is selected, the system displays additional information about corresponding category, the additional information is at least one of number of records in the category or characteristic attributes of the category, and wherein if an arc is selected, the system displays information relating to categories connected by the arc, such as similarity value for the connected categories.