Patent Document ID: 8965872
Application ID: 13172561

Base Claim:
1. A method performed by a computing device having a processor and a memory for identifying comparable item matches for search queries, the method comprising: receiving at least a portion of a search query inputted on a Web page associated with a search engine; accessing an entity data store comprising one or more entities, and one or more categories associated with the one or more entities, wherein the one or more entities are items having associated information and are associated with at least one of the one or more categories; using the entity data store, identifying a number of exact item matches for the at least a portion of the search query; determining that the number of exact item matches is below a predefined threshold; and upon determining that the number of exact item matches is below the predefined threshold, using the entity data store to identify comparable item matches for the at least a portion of the search query, wherein using the entity data store to identify the comparable item matches for the at least the portion of the search query comprises: (1) assigning a similarity score to each of a plurality of non-matching entities in the entity data store that indicates a relative similarity to at least one of the exact item matches, (2) comparing the similarity score to a predefined similarity score, (3) generating query formulation suggestions using a portion of the plurality of non-matching entities that have similarity scores greater than the predefined similarity score, the portion of the plurality of non-matching entities comprising comparable item matches, and (4) presenting at least a portion of the query formulation suggestions on the Web page associated with the search engine.

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Claim 8:
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the similarity score is based in part on a semantic similarity between the each of the plurality of non-matching entities and the at least one of the exact item matches.