Patent ID: 7277854

Claim:
A method of interacting with a user of a natural language query system comprising the steps of: a) providing a speech recognition engine adapted to recognize a first set of words and/or phrases from a user during an interactive speech session; wherein said first set of words and/or phrases can include a natural language query presented as continuous natural language spoken data; b) providing a database of query/answer pairs concerning one or more topics which can be responded to by the natural language query system during said interactive speech based session with a user; c) providing a natural language routine adapted to process said first set of words and/or phrases and identify a response to said natural language query based on said query/answer pairs; wherein said natural language routine is adapted to consider only a subset of said first set of words and/or phrases, and further can consider words and/or phrases in said natural language query which are not present in said query/answer pairs to determine said response; d) providing an interactive electronic agent coupled to said natural language routine and configured to: i. provide a prompt to the user during said interactive speech based session with suggestions on queries which can be made to the natural language query system; ii. provide a confirmation of a substance of said natural language query; iii. provide said response to the user from the natural language query routine.