Patent ID: 8204751

Claim:
A method of automatically providing interactive question answering in a continuous dialog with a user, the method comprising: receiving a current user input as part of the continuous dialog; generating a set of features characterizing an association between the current user input and a conversation context based on at least a semantic and syntactic analysis of prior user inputs received before the current user input and system natural language responses to the prior user inputs within the continuous dialog, wherein a same user provides the current user input and the prior user inputs; determining, based on a normalization of a length of the user input and a previous user input of the prior user inputs, with a data-driven machine learning approach whether the current user input begins a new topic of the continuous dialog or is associated with an existing topic related to a previous conversation context within the continuous dialog; and if the current user input is associated with the existing topic, then generating a response to the current user input using information associated with the current user input and content in any previous user input associated with the existing topic.