Patent Document ID: 8548915
Application ID: 13770744

Base Claim:
1. A method of operating a computer to provide a response to a received user input, the method comprising: automatically with the computer: (a) in response to receiving, from a user's device, a partial user input signifying a portion of an answerable statement, before receiving a full user input representing the entire answerable statement, calculating for each of a plurality of predefined answerable statements, a match metric denoting a degree to which the partial user input matches the predefined answerable statement; and (b) (1) if the match metric for one of the predefined answerable statements exceeds a first threshold, sending, to the user's device, information representing a response associated with said one of the predefined answerable statements, and (2) if part (b)(1) does not apply but the match metric for at least one of the predefined answerable statements exceeds a second threshold, which second threshold is lower than the first threshold, sending, to the user's device, information representing the corresponding at least one of the predefined answerable statements.

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Claim 2:
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising automatically with the computer, after performing part (b), in response to receiving, from the user's device, an additional user input representative of a further portion of the full user input, repeating parts (a) and (b) with the additional user input being included in the partial user input.