Patent ID: 7730087

Claim:
A computer implemented method of answering a query, comprising: deconstructing documents into individual portions defining path segments; re-ordering the documents as contiguous identical path segments with different document portions to form a set of partitions, wherein each partition has an identical nested hierarchical tag structure with varying content from different documents and wherein each nested hierarchical tag structure is a portion of hierarchical tag structure of an original document; analyzing the hierarchical tag structure of a query with markup language tags; selecting, based upon said analyzing, a sub-set of partitions for searching, wherein the selecting includes invalidating search paths through partitions inconsistent with the hierarchical tag structure of said query, such that the sub-set of partitions represents a minimal set of partitions required to process said query; comparing content from said query to content within said sub-set of partitions to identify matched content, said matched content having associated structural attributes; and determining whether said matched content structural attributes correspond to the hierarchical tag structure of said query to identify an answer for said query, wherein the determining includes determining whether said matched content structural attributes have an associated node tree path corresponding to a node tree path segment associated with said query, and further determining whether said matched content has an associated node tree path segment with a subset of nodes corresponding to said node tree path segment associated with said query, wherein the deconstructing, the re-ordering, the analyzing, the selecting, the comparing and the determining are performed with a computer.