The present, invention generally relates to processing search queries and, more particularly, to methods and systems for processing ambiguous, reduced text, multi-term search queries.
There are many user-operated devices such as mobile phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), and television remote control devices that have small keypads, which a user can use for text entry. In many of these devices, largely because of device size restrictions, the keypad is small and has only a small number of keys, which are overloaded with alpha-numeric characters. Text input using these keypads is cumbersome.
In accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention, a method and system are provided of processing a search query entered by a user of a device having a text input interface with overloaded keys. The search query is directed at identifying an item from a set of items. Each of the items has one or more associated descriptors. The system receives from the user an ambiguous search query directed at identifying a desired item. The search query comprises a prefix substring of each of at least two words relating to the desired item. The system dynamically identifies a group of one or more items from the set of items having one or more descriptors matching the search query as the user enters each character of the search query. The system outputs identification of the one or more items of the identified group to be displayed on the device operated by the user.
These and other features will become readily apparent from the following detailed description wherein embodiments of the invention are shown and described by way of illustration. As will be realized, the invention is capable of other and different embodiments and its several details may be capable of modifications in various respects, all without departing from the invention. Accordingly, the drawings and description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature and not in a restrictive or limiting sense with the scope of the application being indicated in the claims.
For a more complete understanding of various embodiments of the present invention, reference is now made to the following descriptions taken in connection with the accompanying drawings in which;
Like reference numerals generally refer to like elements in the drawings.
Briefly, methods and systems are provided in accordance with various embodiments of the invention for performing searches using ambiguous text input from devices having limited text input interfaces.
As described in further detail below, in accordance with various embodiments of the invention, methods and systems are provided for processing a search query entered by a user of a device having a text input interface with overloaded keys. The search query is directed at identifying an item from a set of items. Each of the items has one or more associated descriptors. The descriptors can include words in the name of the item or other information relating to the item. For example, in a television application, the item can be a television content item such as a movie, and the descriptors can be information on the title of the movie, the cast, directors, and other keywords and descriptions of the movie.
Using the text input interface, the user can enter an ambiguous search query directed at identifying a desired item. The search query comprises a prefix substring of each of at least two words relating to the desired item. A prefix substring of a word is a variable length string of characters that contains fewer than all the characters making up the word.
The system dynamically identifies a group of one or more items from the set of items having one or more descriptors matching the search query as the user enters each character of the search query. The group of the one or more items is displayed on the device operated by the user. The items are preferably displayed in an order of expected interest to the user.
The user types in the multiple term prefix input query by pressing overloaded keys of the text input interface once to form an ambiguous query string. In accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention, the search space is initially indexed by performing a many-to-many mapping from the alphanumeric space of terms to numeric strings corresponding to the various prefixes of each alphanumeric term constituting the query string. In a numeric string, each alphanumeric character in the string is replaced by its corresponding numeric equivalent based on, e.g., the arrangement of characters on the commonly used twelve-key reduced keypad shown in
There are various possible applications for the search techniques described herein including, e.g., assisting television viewers in identifying desired television content items and channels, and assisting users of mobile devices such as cell phones and PDAs in performing searches for items in various databases (e.g., performing searches in directories of people or businesses, and searching for and purchasing products/services like airline tickets).
In the context of television systems, the term “television content items” can include a wide variety of video/audio content including, but not limited to, television shows, movies, music videos, or any other identifiable content that can be selected by a television viewer. Searching for television content items can be performed across disparate content sources including, but not limited to, broadcast television, VOD, IPTV, and PVR (local and network).
The network 204 functions as the distribution framework for transmitting data from the server 202 to the devices operated by the users. The distribution network 204 could be wired or wireless connections or some combination thereof. Examples of possible networks include computer networks, cable television networks, satellite television networks, IP-based television networks, and mobile communications networks (such as, e.g., wireless CDMA and GSM networks).
The search devices could have a wide range of interface capabilities. A device, e.g., could be a hand-held mobile communications device 206 such as a phone or PDA having a limited display size and a reduced keypad with overloaded keys. Another type of search device is a television system 207 with a remote control device 208 having an overloaded keypad. Another possible search device is a Personal Computer (PC) 210 with a full or reduced keyboard and a computer display.
In one exemplary embodiment, a television system 207 may have a set-top box or other device with a one-way link to a satellite network. In this configuration, all search data including relevance updates may be downloaded to the device through a satellite link to perform local searching. In this case, the set-top box preferably has sufficient storage capacity to maintain search spaces locally. Local storage is preferably large in this case to circumvent the deficiency of a one-way link.
In addition, other ordering schemes can also or instead be used such as, e.g., character count based subspace biasing, examples of which are described in U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 60/695,463 entitled “Method And System For Incremental Search With Minimal Text Entry On Television Where The Relevance Of Results Is A Dynamically Computed Function Of User Input Search String Character Count” and filed on Jun. 30, 2005, which is assigned to the assignee of the present application and is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
The ordering criteria can give preference to the results matching the search query based on a lexical match, of the type of query input, e.g., in the following order of preference: single term prefixes, multiple term prefixes, and lastly abbreviation matches.
If the user does not find the desired results at 406, he or she can continue to enter more characters to the search query at step 402. Then at step 404, the system will perform the search based on the cumulative substring of characters of the search query entered by the user up to that point.
One characteristic of this method of multiple prefix terms based search in accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention is the absence of an explicit term/word termination action. In other words, the system does not require each word in a search entry to be successively and separately resolved. The system in accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention disambiguates the input by leveraging off the multiple terms (both in the case of loosely coupled and tightly coupled terms).
As the user has not found the desired content relating to Tom and Jerry, he or she enters additional characters in the search query. As shown in
As shown in
Methods of processing ambiguous search query inputs from users in accordance with various embodiments of the invention are preferably implemented in software, and accordingly one of the preferred implementations is as a set of instructions (program code) in a code module resident in the random access memory of a computer. Until required by the computer, the set of instructions may be stored in another computer memory, e.g., in a hard disk drive, or in a removable memory such as an optical disk (for eventual use in a CD ROM) or floppy disk (for eventual use in a floppy disk drive), or downloaded via the Internet or some other computer network. In addition, although the various methods described are conveniently implemented in a general purpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by software, one of ordinary skill in the art would also recognize that such methods may be carried out in hardware, in firmware, or in more specialized apparatus constructed to perform the specified method steps.
Having described preferred embodiments of the present invention, it should be apparent that modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
Method claims set forth below having steps that are numbered or designated by letters should not be considered to be necessarily limited to the particular order in which the steps are recited.
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/432,430, filed Jun. 5, 2019 (currently pending), which is a continuation of U.S. No. Ser. 16/162,990, filed Oct. 17, 2018 (abandoned), which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 14/852,191, filed Sep. 11, 2015 (abandoned), which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/854,690, filed Apr. 1, 2013, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,177,081, issued Nov. 3, 2015, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/869,991, filed Aug. 27, 2010, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,433,696, issued Apr. 30, 2013, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/235,928, filed Sep. 27, 2005, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,788,266, issued Aug. 31, 2010 which claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. Nos. 60/716,101, filed Sep. 12, 2005, now expired and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/711,866, filed Aug. 26, 2005, now expired which are all incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.
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