Patent ID: 8521666

Claim:
For the purpose of acquiring cases for an incremental Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) system having a model defining a hierarchy of concepts and their relationships, the model being used among other things to formalize the structure and content of cases used in the CBR system, the CBR system also having a component for storing information acquired from a user of the CBR system into a session case in such a manner that the acquired information is represented in the session case in terms defined by the model, a computer-based case-acquisition system comprising: a processor; a memory; a first component configured to determine a plurality of applicable potential information acquisition actions, the input to the first component comprising the session case and the model; a second component configured to present the potential information acquisition actions to a user and providing means for the user to choose from the said actions; wherein the information acquired by the CBR system as the result of performing the chosen information acquisition action is stored into the session case using the information storing component of the CBR system; wherein the first and second components are employed one or more times in order to complete the acquisition of the session case.