Patent ID: 8738643

Claim:
A method of determining a synonymous name for an entity represented by an object stored in a fact repository, comprising: at a server having a plurality of processors and memory storing the repository and programs configured for execution by the processors, wherein the repository includes a plurality of facts extracted from web documents, wherein a subset of the facts is associated with the object, and wherein the object has an object name associated with the entity, identifying a source document from which one or more of the subset of facts of the entity represented by the object were derived; identifying a plurality of linking documents having hyperlinks to the source document, each hyperlink having an anchor text; generating a collection of synonym candidates for the entity using the anchor texts in the plurality of linking documents; selecting a synonymous name for the entity represented by the object from the collection of synonym candidates, wherein selecting the synonymous name for the entity represented by the object from the collection of synonym candidates further comprises: determining a score for each synonym candidate in the collection of synonym candidates based on a score function, the score function taking into account: a frequency of occurrence of the synonym candidate in the collection of synonym candidates, and a proportion of the synonym candidate in the collection of synonym candidates; selecting the synonymous name for the entity represented by the object from the collection of synonym candidates based on their scores; and storing the synonymous name in the repository in association with the object in addition to the object name.