Lawrence A Birnbaum

US Patent:

7610279, Oct 27, 2009

Filed:

Jan 31, 2007

Appl. No.:

11/669837

Inventors:

Jerome Louis Budzik - Chicago IL, US
Sanjay Chand Sood - Evanston IL, US
Lawrence A. Birnbaum - Evanston IL, US
Kristian J. Hammond - Chicago IL, US
Andrew Joseph Crossen - Baltimore MD, US

Assignee:

Perfect Market, Inc. - Pasadena CA
Northwestern University - Evanston IL

International Classification:

G06F 17/30

US Classification:

707 4, 707 5, 707 10, 704 9, 704 10, 715204, 715205, 715256, 706 20

Abstract:

Methods and apparatus assessing, ranking, organizing, and presenting search results associated with a user's current work context are disclosed. The system disclosed assesses, ranks, organizes and presents search results against a user's current work context by comparing statistical and heuristic models of the search results to a statistical and heuristic model of the user's current work context. In this manner, search results are assessed, ranked, organized, and/or presented with the benefit of attributes of the user's current work context that are predictive of relevance, such as words in a user's document (e. g. , web page or word processing document) that may not have been included in the search query. In addition, search results from multiple search engines are combined into an organization scheme that best reflects the user's current task. As a result, lists of search results from different search engines can be more usefully presented to the user.

US Patent:

7617199, Nov 10, 2009

Filed:

Jan 31, 2007

Appl. No.:

11/669826

Inventors:

Jerome Louis Budzik - Chicago IL, US
Sanjay Chand Sood - Evanston IL, US
Lawrence A. Birnbaum - Evanston IL, US
Kristian J. Hammond - Chicago IL, US
Andrew Joseph Crossen - Baltimore MD, US

Assignee:

Northwestern University - Evanston IL
Perfect Market, Inc. - Pasadena CA

International Classification:

G06F 17/30

US Classification:

707 4, 707 5, 707 6, 707 10, 704 9, 704 10, 715204, 715205, 715256, 706 20

Abstract:

Methods and apparatus assessing, ranking, organizing, and presenting search results associated with a user's current work context are disclosed. The system disclosed assesses, ranks, organizes and presents search results against a user's current work context by comparing statistical and heuristic models of the search results to a statistical and heuristic model of the user's current work context. In this manner, search results are assessed, ranked, organized, and/or presented with the benefit of attributes of the user's current work context that are predictive of relevance, such as words in a user's document (e. g. , web page or word processing document) that may not have been included in the search query. In addition, search results from multiple search engines are combined into an organization scheme that best reflects the user's current task. As a result, lists of search results from different search engines can be more usefully presented to the user.

US Patent:

7617200, Nov 10, 2009

Filed:

Jan 31, 2007

Appl. No.:

11/669832

Inventors:

Jerome Louis Budzik - Chicago IL, US
Sanjay Chand Sood - Evanston IL, US
Lawrence A. Birnbaum - Evanston IL, US
Kristian J. Hammond - Chicago IL, US
Andrew Joseph Crossen - Baltimore MD, US

Assignee:

Northwestern University - Evanston IL
Perfect Market, Inc. - Pasadena CA

International Classification:

G06F 17/30

US Classification:

707 4, 707 5, 707 10, 704 9, 704 10, 715204, 715205, 715256, 706 20

Abstract:

Methods and apparatus assessing, ranking, organizing, and presenting search results associated with a user's current work context are disclosed. The system disclosed assesses, ranks, organizes and presents search results against a user's current work context by comparing statistical and heuristic models of the search results to a statistical and heuristic model of the user's current work context. In this manner, search results are assessed, ranked, organized, and/or presented with the benefit of attributes of the user's current work context that are predictive of relevance, such as words in a user's document (e. g. , web page or word processing document) that may not have been included in the search query. In addition, search results from multiple search engines are combined into an organization scheme that best reflects the user's current task. As a result, lists of search results from different search engines can be more usefully presented to the user.

US Patent:

7627565, Dec 1, 2009

Filed:

Jan 31, 2007

Appl. No.:

11/669833

Inventors:

Jerome Louis Budzik - Chicago IL, US
Sanjay Chand Sood - Evanston IL, US
Lawrence A. Birnbaum - Evanston IL, US
Kristian J. Hammond - Chicago IL, US
Andrew Joseph Crossen - Baltimore MD, US

Assignee:

Northwestern University - Evanston IL
Perfect Market, Inc. - Pasadena CA

International Classification:

G06F 17/30

US Classification:

707 4, 707 5, 707 10, 704 9, 704 10, 715204, 715205, 715256, 706 20

Abstract:

Methods and apparatus assessing, ranking, organizing, and presenting search results associated with a user's current work context are disclosed. The system disclosed assesses, ranks, organizes and presents search results against a user's current work context by comparing statistical and heuristic models of the search results to a statistical and heuristic model of the user's current work context. In this manner, search results are assessed, ranked, organized, and/or presented with the benefit of attributes of the user's current work context that are predictive of relevance, such as words in a user's document (e. g. , web page or word processing document) that may not have been included in the search query. In addition, search results from multiple search engines are combined into an organization scheme that best reflects the user's current task. As a result, lists of search results from different search engines can be more usefully presented to the user.

US Patent:

7644072, Jan 5, 2010

Filed:

Jan 31, 2007

Appl. No.:

11/669841

Inventors:

Jerome Louis Budzik - Chicago IL, US
Sanjay Chand Sood - Evanston IL, US
Lawrence A. Birnbaum - Evanston IL, US
Kristian J. Hammond - Chicago IL, US
Andrew Joseph Crossen - Baltimore MD, US

Assignee:

Perfect Market, Inc. - Pasadena CA
Northwestern University - Evanston IL

International Classification:

G06F 17/30

US Classification:

707 4, 707 5, 707 6, 707 10, 704 9, 704 10, 715204, 715205, 715256, 706 20, 700 29

Abstract:

Methods and apparatus assessing, ranking, organizing, and presenting search results associated with a user's current work context are disclosed. The system disclosed assesses, ranks, organizes and presents search results against a user's current work context by comparing statistical and heuristic models of the search results to a statistical and heuristic model of the user's current work context. In this manner, search results are assessed, ranked, organized, and/or presented with the benefit of attributes of the user's current work context that are predictive of relevance, such as words in a user's document (e. g. , web page or word processing document) that may not have been included in the search query. In addition, search results from multiple search engines are combined into an organization scheme that best reflects the user's current task. As a result, lists of search results from different search engines can be more usefully presented to the user.

US Patent:

7657518, Feb 2, 2010

Filed:

Jan 31, 2007

Appl. No.:

11/669800

Inventors:

Jerome Louis Budzik - Chicago IL, US
Sanjay Chand Sood - Evanston IL, US
Lawrence A. Birnbaum - Evanston IL, US
Kristian J. Hammond - Chicago IL, US
Andrew Joseph Crossen - Baltimore MD, US

Assignee:

Northwestern University - Evanston IL
Perfect Market, Inc. - Pasadena CA

International Classification:

G06F 17/30

US Classification:

707 4, 707 5, 707 10, 704 9, 704 10, 715204, 715205, 715256, 706 20

Abstract:

Methods and apparatus assessing, ranking, organizing, and presenting search results associated with a user's current work context are disclosed. The system disclosed assesses, ranks, organizes and presents search results against a user's current work context by comparing statistical and heuristic models of the search results to a statistical and heuristic model of the user's current work context. In this manner, search results are assessed, ranked, organized, and/or presented with the benefit of attributes of the user's current work context that are predictive of relevance, such as words in a user's document (e. g. , web page or word processing document) that may not have been included in the search query. In addition, search results from multiple search engines are combined into an organization scheme that best reflects the user's current task. As a result, lists of search results from different search engines can be more usefully presented to the user.

US Patent:

7836010, Nov 16, 2010

Filed:

Jul 30, 2003

Appl. No.:

10/629680

Inventors:

Kristian Hammond - Chicago IL, US
Jerome Budzik - Chicago IL, US
Lawrence Birnbaum - Evanston IL, US

Assignee:

Northwestern University - Evanston IL

International Classification:

G06F 17/30
G06F 7/00

US Classification:

707 9, 707722, 707758, 707705

Abstract:

An information retrieval system for automatically retrieving information related to the context of an active task being manipulated by a user. The system observes the operation of the active task and user interactions, and utilizes predetermined criteria to generate context representation of the active task that are relevant to the context of the active task. The information retrieval system then processes the context representation to generate queries or search terms for conducting an information search. The information retrieval system determines the relevance of a word to the context by utilizing an adaptive weighting system. The information retrieval system assigns varying weights to different attributes of a word and calculates an accumulated weight of the word by accumulating all weights assigned to the word. The attributes may include word size, style, location of the word, etc. The system then ranks the importance of words based on their respective accumulated weight, and chooses words that rank within a predetermined number from the top to form search terms to conduct an information search using various data sources.

US Patent:

7890336, Feb 15, 2011

Filed:

Jan 13, 2003

Appl. No.:

10/341154

Inventors:

Lawrence Birnbaum - Evanston IL, US
Kristian Hammond - Chicago IL, US
Leonard Chen - Evanston IL, US

Assignee:

Northwestern University - Evanston IL

International Classification:

G06Q 99/00

US Classification:

705 11

Abstract:

A system and method in accordance with the present invention include means for providing interactive assistance for the performance of a set of predefined steps, including selecting the set of predefined steps and automatically generating a step-sensitive grammar for each step. Generating the step-sensitive grammar includes generating a set of navigation commands related to each step and generating a set of rules to recognize potential queries related to each step. A recognizer is configured for determining if a received utterance forms one of the navigation commands or one of the potential queries, within a context of the current step. Form this determination, provided are navigation to a different step if the utterance was a navigation command or a response if the utterance was a query.