Patent Document ID: 20100205180
Application ID: 12766183
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. An article of manufacture including a computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a computing device, cause the computer device to perform operations comprising: providing an ontology that links a plurality of concepts at different concept domain layers, wherein the concepts for a first concept domain layer are represented by natural language words having more specific terms than natural language words representing the concepts for a second different concept domain layer; using the ontology to classify at least a plurality of received queries with a particular intent category that includes a single natural language word or phrase that summarizes in a same natural language word formation a generalized information requested by the queries, wherein the queries use different natural language formations to request different types of information summarized by the single natural language word or phrase of the particular intent category; associating an intent response formulated of natural language words or phrases with the particular intent category, wherein the intent response provides a single common applicable response for the queries; providing an intent hierarchy of a plurality of intent categories including the particular intent category, wherein natural language phrases representing the hierarchy of intent categories at different domain layers of the intent hierarchy have different generalities of terms than natural language phrases representing the intent categories in other domain layers of the intent hierarchy, and wherein the intent hierarchy is independent and different from a hierarchy of the ontology; determining if the particular intent category has a parent hierarchical intent category located in a higher domain layer of the intent hierarchy; and if the parent hierarchical intent category is present in the particular intent hierarchy, then displaying an intent response of the parent hierarchical intent category.