Patent ID: 7343371

Claim:
A query-and-response processing method for receiving a search request concerning a query input by a user and searching a database to present search results to the user, the method comprising: analyzing a search request sentence provided by said user using syntactic parsing; analyzing an intention of the query based on the analyzed search request sentence, wherein the analyzing comprises: determining whether said search request sentence includes an interrogative pronoun, and extracting, as a topic of query, either a top level component of syntactic hierarchy of said search request sentence, in a case said search request sentence does not include an interrogative pronoun, or a component qualified by an interrogative pronoun, in a case said search request sentence includes the interrogative pronoun; generating search criteria based on said topic of query extracted in said analyzing the intention of query; searching said database using said generated search criteria and retrieving, as search results, information that are intended for said topic of query; determining an output format of search results based on said topic of the query without further input by the user; and outputting said search results that are selected items to be presented to the user.