Patents by Inventor Ruben Ernesto Ortega

Ruben Ernesto Ortega 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: 7840577
    Abstract: A search engine process predicts the correct spellings of search terms within multiple-term search queries. In one embodiment, when a user submits a multiple-term search query that includes a non-matching term and at least one matching term, a table is accessed to look up a set of terms that are “related” to the matching term or terms. A spelling comparison function is then used to determine whether any of these related terms is sufficiently similar in spelling to the non-matching term to be deemed a candidate correctly-spelled replacement. A candidate replacement term may automatically be substituted for the non-matching term, or may be suggested to the user as a replacement. The invention also includes a process for identifying terms that are related to each other based on the relatively high frequencies with which they co-occur in search queries of users, database records, and/or specific database fields.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 6, 2006
    Date of Patent: November 23, 2010
    Assignee: A9.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Ruben Ernesto Ortega, Dwayne Edward Bowman
  • Patent number: 7444324
    Abstract: A search engine process predicts the correct spellings of search terms within multiple-term search queries. In one embodiment, when a user submits a multiple-term search query that includes a non-matching term and at least one matching term, a table is accessed to look up a set of terms that are “related” to the matching term or terms. A spelling comparison function is then used to determine whether any of these related terms is sufficiently similar in spelling to the non-matching term to be deemed a candidate correctly-spelled replacement. A candidate replacement term may automatically be substituted for the non-matching term, or may be suggested to the user as a replacement. The invention also includes a process for identifying terms that are related to each other based on the relatively high frequencies with which they co-occur within search queries of users, database records, and/or specific database fields.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 3, 2004
    Date of Patent: October 28, 2008
    Assignee: A9.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Ruben Ernesto Ortega, Dwayne Edward Bowman
  • Patent number: 6853993
    Abstract: A search engine process predicts the correct spellings of search terms within multiple-term search queries. In one embodiment, when a user submits a multiple-term search query that includes a non-matching term and at least one matching term, a table is accessed to look up a set of terms that are “related” to the matching term or terms. A spelling comparison function is then used to determine whether any of these related terms is sufficiently similar in spelling to the non-matching term to be deemed a candidate correctly-spelled replacement. A candidate replacement term may automatically be substituted for the non-matching term, or may be suggested to the user as a replacement. The invention also includes a process for identifying terms that are related to each other based on the relatively high frequencies with which they co-occur within search queries of users, database records, and/or specific database fields.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 1, 2002
    Date of Patent: February 8, 2005
    Assignee: A9.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Ruben Ernesto Ortega, Dwayne Edward Bowman
  • Publication number: 20020152204
    Abstract: A search engine process predicts the correct spellings of search terms within multiple-term search queries. In one embodiment, when a user submits a multiple-term search query that includes a non-matching term and at least one matching term, a table is accessed to look up a set of terms that are “related” to the matching term or terms. A spelling comparison function is then used to determine whether any of these related terms is sufficiently similar in spelling to the non-matching term to be deemed a candidate correctly-spelled replacement. A candidate replacement term may automatically be substituted for the non-matching term, or may be suggested to the user as a replacement. The invention also includes a process for identifying terms that are related to each other based on the relatively high frequencies with which they co-occur within search queries of users, database records, and/or specific database fields.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 1, 2002
    Publication date: October 17, 2002
    Inventors: Ruben Ernesto Ortega, Dwayne Edward Bowman
  • Patent number: 6401084
    Abstract: A search engine process is disclosed for predicting the correct spelling of search terms within multiple-term search queries. In one embodiment, when a user submits a multiple-term search query that includes a non-matching term and at least one matching term, a table is accessed to look up a set of terms that are “related” to the matching term or terms. A spelling comparison function is then used to determine whether any of these related terms is sufficiently similar in spelling to the non-matching term to be deemed a candidate correctly-spelled replacement. A candidate replacement term may automatically be substituted for the non-matching term, or may be suggested to the user as a replacement. The invention also includes a process for identifying terms that are related to each other based on the relatively high frequencies with which they co-occur within search queries of users, database records, and/or specific database fields.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 2000
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2002
    Assignee: Amazon.com Holdings, Inc
    Inventors: Ruben Ernesto Ortega, Dwayne Edward Bowman
  • Patent number: 6144958
    Abstract: A search engine is disclosed that uses correlations between search terms to correct misspelled terms within search queries. The correlations are based at least in-part on historical query submissions to the search engine. Preferably, the correlations reflect the frequencies with which the search terms have historically appeared together within the same query, and are stored within a correlation table using related terms lists. In one embodiment, the correlation table is generated periodically from the M (e.g. 10) most recent days of entries in a query log, and thus reflects the current preferences of users. In operation, when a query that includes both matching and non-matching search terms is submitted to the search engine, a spelling correction process accesses the correlation table to generate a list of terms that are deemed to be related to the matching term(s).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 15, 1998
    Date of Patent: November 7, 2000
    Assignee: Amazon.com, Inc.
    Inventors: Ruben Ernesto Ortega, Dwayne Edward Bowman, Michael L. Hamrick, Joel R. Spiegel, Timothy R. Kohn