Patent Document ID: 20090204609
Application ID: 12368689
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. An apparatus comprising: an interface configured to receive an initial set of terms of a query; and a processor configured to perform a method comprising: initializing a set of candidate terms; performing the following for a predetermined number of iterations: obtaining a predetermined number of temporary terms for each candidate term of the set of candidate terms, the predetermined number of temporary terms having a higher differential affinity to the each candidate term; placing each temporary term and the associated higher differential affinity into a set of temporary terms, if a temporary term is obtained from more than one candidate term, the differential affinity of the temporary term being related to the differential affinities to the more than one candidate term; calculating an average differential affinity for each temporary term of the set of temporary terms, the average differential affinity representing an average of differential affinities from the each temporary term to every term of the initial set of terms; removing from the temporary set one or more terms with an average differential affinity that fails to satisfy a predetermined threshold; and placing one or more terms of the temporary set with higher differential affinities into the set of candidate terms; selecting one or more terms of the set of candidate terms; and returning the one or more selected terms.