Patent Document ID: 9448995
Application ID: 14176067

Base Claim:
1. Method, in particular computer-implemented method or method implemented by digital electronic components, for retrieving results in response to a query, in particular a user-defined natural language query, from semantically structured resources stored in at least one database, comprising the steps of: i. tokenizing the query by segmenting the query into terms, in particular one or multiple words, and mapping them into semantic tokens using at least one lexicon, wherein such lexicon contains at least the token type of a semantic token, in particular class, role, instance and/or constraint, ii. generating a representation, in particular a representation Incorporating a mathematical graph, of the semantic tokens associated with the segmentation performed in step (i), and determining the representation's focus, by employing a set of rules or patterns for such focus based on the token type, in particular class, role, instance and/or constraint, of the semantic tokens, wherein the rules or patterns define one or more nodes, and/or one or more relationships between nodes, associated with the token type of the semantic tokens, and the rules or patterns distinguish between terminal and non-terminal nodes and relationships, and characterize one of the non-terminal nodes or relationships as the query's focus, iii. generating a database query, in particular an SQL, SPARQL or XQuery query, from the graph-based intermediate representation determined in steps i) and ii) and sending it to the at least one database, iv. retrieving a response from the at least one database.

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Claim 5:
5. Computer program product, in particular computer-readable medium, particularly a compact disk or the memory or the hard disk of a digital computer, that can at least partially be loaded into the internal memory of the digital computer, in particular a server, that includes instructions for executing the steps according to claim 1 when executed on the digital computer.