Patent Document ID: 8291319
Application ID: 12549644

Base Claim:
1. A computer implemented method for retrieving solutions that solve a problem experienced by a user, the computer implemented method comprising: generating, by a computer, a candidate solution document set for solving the problem, wherein a customized solution procedure for solving the problem is generated by the computer from a plurality of stored solution documents, and wherein a modified solution procedure with another set of instruction steps is generated by the computer for solving the problem based on the computer receiving an input rejecting one or more instruction steps included in the customized solution procedure; generating, by the computer, a document object model tree for the generated candidate solution document set; simplifying, by the computer, the generated document object model tree for the generated candidate solution document set by filtering out nodes in the generated document object model tree that do not have structural effects; generating, by the computer, a template based on the simplified document object model tree; calculating, by the computer, a structural similarity score for solution documents by comparing document object model trees of the solution documents with the generated template; determining, by the computer, whether the structural similarity score for the solution documents is greater than a predetermined threshold; responsive to the computer determining that the structural similarity score is greater than the predetermined threshold, storing, by the computer, the solution documents with structural similarity scores greater than the predetermined threshold; responsive to the computer receiving a query describing the problem, sending, by the computer, relevant candidate solutions to the problem, wherein the relevant candidate solutions include unstructured hypertext markup language solution documents found on a world wide web, and wherein the unstructured hypertext markup language solution documents include solution data found in web logs, instant messaging chat sessions, and online message boards; responsive to the computer receiving a selection of one relevant candidate solution from the relevant candidate solutions, analyzing, by the computer, instructions steps within the one relevant candidate solution selected; calculating, by the computer, an instruction step similarity between the instruction steps within the one relevant candidate solution selected and other instructions steps within the stored solution documents; and sending, by the computer, similar solutions containing similar instruction steps to the instruction steps contained within the one relevant candidate solution selected based on the calculated instruction step similarity.

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Claim 8:
8. The computer implemented method of claim 1 , wherein metadata is used to determine similarity between solutions.