Patent Document ID: 9183297
Application ID: 12546649

Base Claim:
1. A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving a query comprising a first term; identifying, by one or more computers, one or more synonyms for the first term, wherein identifying the one or more synonyms comprises: determining that the first term and a second term satisfy predetermined criteria associated with a particular class of related terms, in response to determining that the first term and the second term satisfy the predetermined criteria, selecting a threshold that is different from a default threshold, wherein the default threshold is a threshold that is used to evaluate terms that do not satisfy the predetermined criteria associated with the particular class of related terms, generating a score for the first term and the second term by evaluating a relationship between the first term and the second term, and determining that the second term is a synonym of the first term based on applying the generated score to the selected threshold; generating an altered query using the second term; and processing the altered query to produce search results.

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Claim 4:
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining that the first and second terms satisfy the predetermined criteria comprises identifying a prefix common to both terms and comparing the length of the prefix to the length of the terms.