Patent Document ID: 8041730
Application ID: 11923424

Base Claim:
1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving a query term and a possible synonym for the query term; accessing a geographic data set that associates geographic location names with corresponding positions in a tree structure, wherein different positions in the tree structure that share a same level correspond to different geographic locations that share a same geographic region type; identifying a first position in the tree structure of the query term and identifying a second position in the tree structure of the possible synonym for the query term; determining that the query term and the possible synonym for the query term are problem synonyms based at least on a relative position of the first position in the tree structure with respect to the second position in the tree structure wherein the problem synonyms are two terms that have related geographic contexts according to the tree structure; and notifying a search engine that the query term and the possible synonym for the query term are problem synonyms.

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Claim 23:
23. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: determining a geographic distance between a first geographic location associated with the query term and a second geographic location associated with the possible synonym for the query term, wherein the query term and the possible synonym for the query term are determined to be problem synonyms further based on the geographic distance between the first geographic location associated with the query term and the second geographic location associated with the possible synonym for the query term.