Patents by Inventor Christopher A. Welty

Christopher A. Welty has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 11086883
    Abstract: Systems and methods are described to suggest new content to a writer. An intelligent tool is initiated to obtain content of a document that is being written by an author. The intelligent tool then determines a topic of the content of the document, and identifies one or more predictive topics related to the determined topic. The one or more predictive topics are different from the topic. The intelligent tool then performs a content search based on the topic and the one or more predictive topics, and provides results from the content search to the author.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 10, 2021
    Assignee: Google LLC
    Inventors: Kishore Papineni, Brian Kravitz, Richard Zens, Christopher Welty
  • Patent number: 10482115
    Abstract: A system, method and computer program product for conducting questions and answers with deferred type evaluation based on any corpus of data. The method includes processing a query including waiting until a “Type” (i.e. a descriptor) is determined AND a candidate answer is provided. Then, a search is conducted to look (search) for evidence that the candidate answer has the required Lexical Answer Type (e.g., as determined by a matching function that can leverage a parser, a semantic interpreter and/or a simple pattern matcher). Prior to or during candidate answer evaluation, a process is provided for extracting and storing collections of entity-type pairs from semi-structured text documents. During QA processing and candidate answer scoring, a process is implemented to match the query LAT against the lexical type of each provided candidate answer and generate a score judging a degree of match.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 23, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 19, 2019
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: James W. Murdock, IV, James J. Fan, Christopher A. Welty, Pablo A. Duboue, David A. Ferrucci, Wlodek W. Zadrozny
  • Patent number: 10346751
    Abstract: According to an aspect, a heterogeneous graph in a data store is accessed. The heterogeneous graph includes a plurality of nodes having a plurality of node types. The nodes are connected by edges having a plurality of relation types. One or more intermediary graphs are created based on the heterogeneous graph. The intermediary graphs include intermediary nodes that are the relation types of the edges of the heterogeneous graph and include intermediary links between the intermediary nodes based on shared instances of the nodes between relation types in the heterogeneous graph. The intermediary graphs are traversed to find sets of relations based on intermediary links according to a template. An inference rule is extracted from the heterogeneous graph based on finding sets of relations in the intermediary graphs. The inference rule defines an inferred relation type between at least two of the nodes of the heterogeneous graph.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 15, 2014
    Date of Patent: July 9, 2019
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Apoorv Agarwal, Kenneth J. Barker, Jennifer Chu-Carroll, Aditya A. Kalyanpur, Christopher A. Welty, Wlodek W. Zadrozny
  • Patent number: 10242310
    Abstract: A system and method for automatically mapping LATs and candidate answers to multiple taxonomies without a need to merge these taxonomies. The method includes using a syntactic analysis of a corpus to extract all type instances of the LAT. The extracted instances are then mapped to a given taxonomy and clustered in a set of supertypes. Each supertype receives a score based on the coverage of LAT instances in the corpus. The method includes mapping the candidate answer to the same taxonomy to determine if the candidate answer is an instance of a significant supertype. Then the score of a candidate answer is obtained by aggregating or taking a maximum of the score of the matched significant supertypes. This score evaluates the type match between the LAT and candidate answer for a taxonomy. Multiple taxonomies can be used to increase the chance of LAT and candidate answer mapping.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 11, 2017
    Date of Patent: March 26, 2019
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Sugato Bagchi, Mihaela A. Bornea, James J. Fan, Aditya A. Kalyanpur, Christopher Welty
  • Patent number: 10108904
    Abstract: In a method of answering questions, a question is received, a question LAT is determined, and a candidate answer to the question is identified. Preliminary types for the candidate answer are determined using first components to produce the preliminary types. Each of the first components produces a preliminary type using different methods. A first type-score representing a degree of match between the preliminary type and the question LAT is produced. Each preliminary type and each first type-score is evaluated using second components. Each of the second components produces a second score based on a combination of the first type-score and a measure of degree that the preliminary type matches the question LAT. The second components use different methods to produce the second score. A final score representing a degree of confidence that the candidate answer matches the question LAT is calculated based on the second score.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 4, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 23, 2018
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Sugato Bagchi, James J. Fan, David A. Ferrucci, Aditya A. Kalyanpur, James W. Murdock, IV, Christopher A. Welty
  • Publication number: 20180046705
    Abstract: A system, method and computer program product for conducting questions and answers with deferred type evaluation based on any corpus of data. The method includes processing a query including waiting until a “Type” (i.e. a descriptor) is determined AND a candidate answer is provided. Then, a search is conducted to look (search) for evidence that the candidate answer has the required Lexical Answer Type (e.g., as determined by a matching function that can leverage a parser, a semantic interpreter and/or a simple pattern matcher). Prior to or during candidate answer evaluation, a process is provided for extracting and storing collections of entity-type pairs from semi-structured text documents. During QA processing and candidate answer scoring, a process is implemented to match the query LAT against the lexical type of each provided candidate answer and generate a score judging a degree of match.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 23, 2017
    Publication date: February 15, 2018
    Inventors: James W. Murdock, IV, James J. Fan, Christopher A. Welty, Pablo A. Duboue, David A. Ferrucci, Wlodek W. Zadrozny
  • Patent number: 9798800
    Abstract: A system, method and computer program product for conducting questions and answers with deferred type evaluation based on any corpus of data. The method includes processing a query including waiting until a “Type” (i.e. a descriptor) is determined AND a candidate answer is provided. Then, a search is conducted to look (search) for evidence that the candidate answer has the required Lexical Answer Type (e.g., as determined by a matching function that can leverage a parser, a semantic interpreter and/or a simple pattern matcher). Prior to or during candidate answer evaluation, a process is provided for extracting and storing collections of entity-type pairs from semi-structured text documents. During QA processing and candidate answer scoring, a process is implemented to match the query LAT against the lexical type of each provided candidate answer and generate a score judging a degree of match.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 24, 2017
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Pablo A. Duboue, James J. Fan, David A. Ferrucci, James W. Murdock, IV, Christopher A. Welty, Wlodek W. Zadrozny
  • Publication number: 20170300535
    Abstract: Systems and methods are described to suggest new content to a writer. An intelligent tool is initiated to obtain content of a document that is being written by an author. The intelligent tool then determines a topic of the content of the document, and identifies one or more predictive topics related to the determined topic. The one or more predictive topics are different from the topic. The intelligent tool then performs a content search based on the topic and the one or more predictive topics, and provides results from the content search to the author.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 31, 2016
    Publication date: October 19, 2017
    Inventors: Kishore Papineni, Brian Kravitz, Richard Zens, Christopher Welty
  • Patent number: 9792549
    Abstract: According to an aspect, a pair of related entities that includes a first entity and a second entity is received. Distributional relations are detected between the first entity and the second entity. The detecting includes identifying two sets of entities in a corpus, the first set including the first entity and at least one other entity that is semantically similar to the first entity, and the second set including the second entity and at least one other entity that is semantically similar to the second entity. Semantic relations are detected between entities in the first set and entities in the second set. A relation classifier is trained using the pair of related entities and detected semantic relations. The relation classifier model is applied to a new pair of entities to determine a likelihood of a semantic relation between the entities in the new pair of entities.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 21, 2014
    Date of Patent: October 17, 2017
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Mihaela A. Bornea, James J. Fan, Alfio M. Gliozzo, Christopher A. Welty
  • Patent number: 9785887
    Abstract: According to an aspect, a pair of related entities that includes a first entity and a second entity is received. Distributional relations are detected between the first entity and the second entity. The detecting includes identifying two sets of entities in a corpus, the first set including the first entity and at least one other entity that is semantically similar to the first entity, and the second set including the second entity and at least one other entity that is semantically similar to the second entity. Semantic relations are detected between entities in the first set and entities in the second set. A relation classifier is trained using the pair of related entities and detected semantic relations. The relation classifier model is applied to a new pair of entities to determine a likelihood of a semantic relation between the entities in the new pair of entities.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 11, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 10, 2017
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Mihaela A. Bornea, James J. Fan, Alfio M. Gliozzo, Christopher A. Welty
  • Publication number: 20170154256
    Abstract: A system and method for automatically mapping LATs and candidate answers to multiple taxonomies without a need to merge these taxonomies. The method includes using a syntactic analysis of a corpus to extract all type instances of the LAT. The extracted instances are then mapped to a given taxonomy and clustered in a set of supertypes. Each supertype receives a score based on the coverage of LAT instances in the corpus. The method includes mapping the candidate answer to the same taxonomy to determine if the candidate answer is an instance of a significant supertype. Then the score of a candidate answer is obtained by aggregating or taking a maximum of the score of the matched significant supertypes. This score evaluates the type match between the LAT and candidate answer for a taxonomy. Multiple taxonomies can be used to increase the chance of LAT and candidate answer mapping.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 11, 2017
    Publication date: June 1, 2017
    Inventors: Sugato Bagchi, Mihaela A. Bornea, James J. Fan, Aditya A. Kalyanpur, Christopher Welty
  • Patent number: 9569724
    Abstract: A computer-implemented system, method and program product generates answers to questions in an input query text string. The method includes determining, by a programmed processor unit, a lexical answer type (LAT) string associated with an input query; automatically obtaining a candidate answer string to the input query from a data corpus; mapping the query LAT string to a first type string in a structured resource; mapping the candidate answer string to a second type string in the structured resource; and determining if the first type string and the second type string are disjointed; and scoring the candidate answer string based on the determination of the types being disjointed wherein the structured resource includes a semantic database providing ontological content.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2017
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: David A. Ferucci, Aditya A. Kalyanpur, James W. Murdock, IV, Christopher A. Welty, Wlodek W. Zadrozny
  • Patent number: 9569503
    Abstract: A system and method for automatically mapping LATs and candidate answers to multiple taxonomies without a need to merge these taxonomies. The method includes using a syntactic analysis of a corpus to extract all type instances of the LAT. The extracted instances are then mapped to a given taxonomy and clustered in a set of supertypes. Each supertype receives a score based on the coverage of LAT instances in the corpus. The method includes mapping the candidate answer to the same taxonomy to determine if the candidate answer is an instance of a significant supertype. Then the score of a candidate answer is obtained by aggregating or taking a maximum of the score of the matched significant supertypes. This score evaluates the type match between the LAT and candidate answer for a taxonomy. Multiple taxonomies can be used to increase the chance of LAT and candidate answer mapping.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 23, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2017
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Sugato Bagchi, Mihaela A. Bornea, James J. Fan, Aditya A. Kalyanpur, Christopher Welty
  • Patent number: 9508038
    Abstract: A computer-implemented system, method and program product generates answers to questions in an input query text string. The method includes determining, by a programmed processor unit, a lexical answer type (LAT) string associated with an input query; automatically obtaining a candidate answer string to the input query from a data corpus; mapping the query LAT string to a first type string in a structured resource; mapping the candidate answer string to a second type string in the structured resource; and determining if the first type string and the second type string are disjointed; and scoring the candidate answer string based on the determination of the types being disjointed wherein the structured resource includes a semantic database providing ontological content.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 6, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2016
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: David A. Ferrucci, Aditya Kalyanpur, James W. Murdock, IV, Christopher A. Welty, Wlodek W. Zadrozny
  • Publication number: 20160148096
    Abstract: According to an aspect, a pair of related entities that includes a first entity and a second entity is received. Distributional relations are detected between the first entity and the second entity. The detecting includes identifying two sets of entities in a corpus, the first set including the first entity and at least one other entity that is semantically similar to the first entity, and the second set including the second entity and at least one other entity that is semantically similar to the second entity. Semantic relations are detected between entities in the first set and entities in the second set. A relation classifier is trained using the pair of related entities and detected semantic relations. The relation classifier model is applied to a new pair of entities to determine a likelihood of a semantic relation between the entities in the new pair of entities.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 21, 2014
    Publication date: May 26, 2016
    Inventors: Mihaela A. Bornea, James J. Fan, Alfio M. Gliozzo, Christopher A. Welty
  • Publication number: 20160148116
    Abstract: According to an aspect, a pair of related entities that includes a first entity and a second entity is received. Distributional relations are detected between the first entity and the second entity. The detecting includes identifying two sets of entities in a corpus, the first set including the first entity and at least one other entity that is semantically similar to the first entity, and the second set including the second entity and at least one other entity that is semantically similar to the second entity. Semantic relations are detected between entities in the first set and entities in the second set. A relation classifier is trained using the pair of related entities and detected semantic relations. The relation classifier model is applied to a new pair of entities to determine a likelihood of a semantic relation between the entities in the new pair of entities.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 11, 2015
    Publication date: May 26, 2016
    Inventors: Mihaela A. Bornea, James J. Fan, Alfio M. Gliozzo, Christopher A. Welty
  • Publication number: 20160086503
    Abstract: In a method of answering questions, a question is received, a question LAT is determined, and a candidate answer to the question is identified. Preliminary types for the candidate answer are determined using first components to produce the preliminary types. Each of the first components produces a preliminary type using different methods. A first type-score representing a degree of match between the preliminary type and the question LAT is produced. Each preliminary type and each first type-score is evaluated using second components. Each of the second components produces a second score based on a combination of the first type-score and a measure of degree that the preliminary type matches the question LAT. The second components use different methods to produce the second score. A final score representing a degree of confidence that the candidate answer matches the question LAT is calculated based on the second score.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 4, 2015
    Publication date: March 24, 2016
    Inventors: Sugato Bagchi, James J. Fan, David A. Ferrucci, Aditya A. Kalyanpur, James W. Murdock, IV, Christopher A. Welty
  • Publication number: 20160078343
    Abstract: According to an aspect, a heterogeneous graph in a data store is accessed. The heterogeneous graph includes a plurality of nodes having a plurality of node types. The nodes are connected by edges having a plurality of relation types. One or more intermediary graphs are created based on the heterogeneous graph. The intermediary graphs include intermediary nodes that are the relation types of the edges of the heterogeneous graph and include intermediary links between the intermediary nodes based on shared instances of the nodes between relation types in the heterogeneous graph. The intermediary graphs are traversed to find sets of relations based on intermediary links according to a template. An inference rule is extracted from the heterogeneous graph based on finding sets of relations in the intermediary graphs. The inference rule defines an inferred relation type between at least two of the nodes of the heterogeneous graph.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 15, 2014
    Publication date: March 17, 2016
    Inventors: Apoorv Agarwal, Kenneth J. Barker, Jennifer Chu-Carroll, Aditya A. Kalyanpur, Christopher A. Welty, Wlodek W. Zadrozny
  • Publication number: 20160078344
    Abstract: According to an aspect, a heterogeneous graph in a data store is accessed. The heterogeneous graph includes a plurality of nodes having a plurality of node types. The nodes are connected by edges having a plurality of relation types. One or more intermediary graphs are created based on the heterogeneous graph. The intermediary graphs include intermediary nodes that are the relation types of the edges of the heterogeneous graph and include intermediary links between the intermediary nodes based on shared instances of the nodes between relation types in the heterogeneous graph. The intermediary graphs are traversed to find sets of relations based on intermediary links according to a template. An inference rule is extracted from the heterogeneous graph based on finding sets of relations in the intermediary graphs. The inference rule defines an inferred relation type between at least two of the nodes of the heterogeneous graph.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 5, 2015
    Publication date: March 17, 2016
    Inventors: Apoorv Agarwal, Kenneth J. Barker, Jennifer Chu-Carroll, Aditya A. Kalyanpur, Christopher A. Welty, Wlodek W. Zadrozny
  • Patent number: 9262938
    Abstract: In a method of answering questions, a question is received, a question LAT is determined, and a candidate answer to the question is identified. Preliminary types for the candidate answer are determined using first components to produce the preliminary types. Each of the first components produces a preliminary type using different methods. A first type-score representing a degree of match between the preliminary type and the question LAT is produced. Each preliminary type and each first type-score is evaluated using second components. Each of the second components produces a second score based on a combination of the first type-score and a measure of degree that the preliminary type matches the question LAT. The second components use different methods to produce the second score. A final score representing a degree of confidence that the candidate answer matches the question LAT is calculated based on the second score.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Sugato Bagchi, James J. Fan, David A. Ferrucci, Aditya A. Kalyanpur, James W. Murdock, IV, Christopher A. Welty