Patent Document ID: 8108214
Application ID: 12274267

Base Claim:
1. A computer-implemented method in a dialog system, comprising: receiving a user utterance including a proper name; recognizing the proper name in the user utterance; determining a first confidence score for the recognized proper name; generating a first machine response the user utterance including an indirect confirmation question related to the proper name, wherein the first machine response does not repeat the proper name, if the first confidence score is below a defined threshold value; receiving a user response to the indirect confirmation question; and modifying the first confidence score to generate a second confidence score based on the user response.

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Claim 4:
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the user utterance comprises a query input to a speech recognition stage of the dialog system, the method further comprising: parsing the proper name from the user utterance; generating one or more hypotheses to identify a plurality of candidate names, each candidate name potentially corresponding to the uttered proper name; and selecting the best proper name from the plurality of candidate names.