Patent ID: 8832075

Claim:
A method for use in searching stored information, comprising the following steps of: establishing a knowledge base for a given subject matter area, wherein an association is defined between potential search terms for search requests and source terms identifying source data of the subject matter area based on a common classification of the potential search terms and the source terms identifying the subject matter area, thereby establishing a context for matching the potential search terms and the source terms in relation to the subject matter area; receiving a search request including a first search term; determining that the first search term matches at least one of the potential search terms; in response to the determining, using the knowledge base to search the stored information to retrieve result information that is responsive to the search request by: identifying a first source term within the knowledge base, different from the first search term with respect to one of linguistics and syntax, identifying a first classification of a subject matter area associated with the first source term and a second classification that is a sub-classification of the first classification of the subject matter area associated with the first source term, and searching the stored information based on both the first classification and the second classification, wherein the search based on the first classification being: automatically conducted after the search based on the second classification, and based on a result of the search based on the second classification, wherein the search based on the first classification is only conducted in response to a failure to obtain any result information from the search based on the second classification; and responding to the search request using the result information.