Patent Document ID: 7831588
Application ID: 12026053

Base Claim:
1. A method for processing a search query having a plurality of search terms for searching for documents, the method comprising: segmenting the query to identify two or more units; expanding the query by selecting one or more substitutable units for at least one unit in the query; calculating a substitution probability for each substitutable unit; for each substitutable unit, calculating a co-occurrence probability with each of the remaining units in the search query; determining an occurrence probability for each substitutable unit; calculating a score based on the combination of the substitution probability, the co-occurrence probability, and occurrence probability; and ranking the documents in an order determined by the score.

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Claim 2:
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein one or more substitutable units are selected from a table or storage of substitutable units, the table of substitutable units being periodically updated.