Patent Issued for Intention identification in electronic documents (USPTO 11461787): United Services Automobile Association

2022 OCT 20 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors Riley, Timothy L. (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on February 27, 2017, was published online on October 4, 2022.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11461787, is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Various individuals may convey similar abstract concepts using different words and phrases based on each individual’s pre-dispositions and manners of thinking about the concepts. Determining an intention or purpose of a document based on abstract concepts becomes difficult and imprecise using traditional methods due to the differing ways that various authors of documents think about and describe similar topics. Consequently, document processing systems categorize or route by documents based on criteria other than author intent or purpose.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “This specification relates to identifying an intent of electronic textual documents. More specifically, this specification relates to identifying an intent of electronic textual documents and routing the documents based on the identified intent.

“In general, innovative aspects of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include the actions of receiving an electronic text document. Identifying a context of the document based on mapping text from the document to entries in a plurality of concept libraries. Determining an intersection between a first entry in a first of the plurality of concept libraries and a second entry in a second of the plurality of concept libraries. Identifying a relationship between at least two concepts included in the document based on the intersection between the first entry and the second entry. Determining an intent of the document based on the context and the relationship between the at least two concepts. Automatically routing the document for further processing based on the determined intent. Other implementations of this aspect include corresponding systems, apparatus, and computer programs, configured to perform the actions of the methods, encoded on computer storage devices.

“In a second aspect the subject matter describe in this specification can be embodied in an electronic document routing system that includes a data store for storing data, means for storing a plurality of context entries for a plurality of lexicons, and one or more processors. The one or more processors are configured to interact with the data store and the means for storing the plurality of context entries for the plurality of lexicons. The one or more processors are configured to perform operations that include receiving an electronic text document. Identifying a context of the document using the means for storing a plurality of context entries for a plurality of lexicons. Determining an intersection between a first entry in a first concept library and a second entry in a second concept library. Identifying a relationship between at least two concepts included in the document based on the intersection between the first entry and the second entry. Determining an intent of the document based on the context and the relationship between the at least two concepts. Automatically routing the document for further processing based on the determined intent.

“These and other implementations can each optionally include one or more of the following features.

“In some implementations, automatically routing the document includes routing the document to a customer service representative qualified to address the intent of the document.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. An electronic document routing system comprising: a data store for storing data; and one or more processors configured to interact with the data store, the one or more processors being further configured to perform operations comprising: receiving an electronic text document comprising an electronic mail message or an electronic chat message of a user; identifying a first text comprising a first word or a first phrase contained within the electronic text document, wherein the first word or the first phrase is indicative of a first geographic location of a plurality of geographic locations; mapping the first text of the electronic text document to a first geographic location entry in a location concept library of a plurality of concept libraries in the data store based on the first geographic location, wherein each concept library of the plurality of concept libraries comprises a plurality of lexicon entries associated with a respective concept group, wherein the location concept library comprises a first set of words, phrases, or both, representative of the plurality of geographic locations, and wherein a first plurality of subsets of the first set of words, phrases, or both, corresponds to the plurality of geographic locations; identifying a second text comprising a second word or a second phrase contained within the electronic text document, wherein the second word or the second phrase is indicative of a second geographic location of the plurality of geographic locations; mapping the second text of the electronic text document to a second geographic location entry in the location concept library based on the second geographic location; mapping a third text of the electronic text document to a product entry in a product concept library of the plurality of concept libraries in the data store, wherein the product concept library comprises a second set of words, phrases, or both, representative of a plurality of products, and wherein a second plurality of subsets of the second set of words, phrases, or both, corresponds to the plurality of products; identifying a first location concept of the first text of the electronic text document based on the first geographic location entry and a first location concept group of the location concept library, wherein the first location concept is representative of the first geographic location of the plurality of geographic locations; identifying a second location concept of the second text of the electronic text document based on the second geographic location entry and a second location concept group of the location concept library, wherein the second location concept is representative of the second geographic location of the plurality of geographic locations; identifying a product concept of the third text of the electronic text document based on the product entry and a product concept group of the product concept library, wherein the product concept is representative of a product of the plurality of products; identifying association mapping data from based on the first location concept group, the second location concept group, and the product concept group, wherein the association mapping data comprises one or more expected associations between the first location concept group, the second location concept group, and the product concept group; determining an intersection between the first geographic location entry and the second geographic location entry based on association mapping data representing associations between the first location concept group and the second location concept group, wherein the intersection is indicative of a relationship between the first location concept and the second location concept of the electronic text document with respect to the first geographic location entry and the second geographic location entry, and wherein the relationship is indicative of a movement of the user from the first geographic location to the second geographic location; identifying a context of the electronic text document based on the product concept and the association mapping data; determining a service to be performed based on the relationship and the context, wherein the service comprises assisting the user with a request related to the product and the movement of the user; determining an intent of the electronic text document based on the service; and automatically routing the electronic text document for further processing based on the intent to a customer service representative qualified to perform the service.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the operation comprising automatically routing the electronic text document comprises routing the electronic text document to an interactive response system.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise: identifying an additional product that is ancillary to the intent of the electronic text document; and automatically routing the electronic text document to a customer service representative qualified to offer the additional product.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise providing, for display on a workstation of the customer service representative, a notification that explains the intent of the electronic text document.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise providing, for display on a workstation of the customer service representative, a notification that is indicative of the first location concept, the second location concept, the product concept, or a combination thereof, conveyed by the electronic text document.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the operation comprising mapping the first text and the second text of the electronic text document to the first geographic location entry in the location concept library and the second geographic location entry in the location concept library, respectively, comprises: identifying one or more lexicons associated with the first text and the second text within the electronic text document; and mapping the first text and the second text to the first geographic location entry and the second geographic location entry, respectively, according to the one or more lexicons.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein each location lexicon entry of a plurality of location lexicon entries of the location concept library comprises a first subset of the first plurality of subsets of the words, phrases, or both, that are mapped to at least one location concept of the first location concept group or the second location concept group intended to be conveyed by the first subset.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise: identifying an additional product that is ancillary to the intent of the electronic text document; and providing, for display on a user computing device, an advertisement related to the additional product or the service.

“9. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of lexicon entries of each concept library comprise one or more lexicons related to the respective concept group.

“10. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of concept libraries comprise the products, product features, lines of business, business organizational units, communication channels, computer systems, application software, life events, the plurality of geographic locations, vehicle types, or a combination thereof.

“11. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise: determining whether an interactive response system is configured to perform the service; automatically routing the electronic text document for further processing to the interactive response system in response to determining that the interactive response system is configured to perform the service; and automatically routing the electronic text document for further processing to the customer service representative in response to determining that the interactive response system is not configured to perform the service.

“12. The system of claim 11, wherein the interactive response system is configured to provide a tailored response based on the determined intent of the electronic text document.

“13. The system of claim 1, wherein determining the intersection between the first geographic location entry and the second geographic location entry based on the association mapping data representing the associations between the first location concept group and the second location concept group comprises using textual analysis techniques to identify the intersection between the first geographic location entry and the second geographic location entry.

“14. The system of claim 13, wherein the textual analysis techniques comprise grammar parsing, part-of-speech tagging analysis, or both.

“15. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of products comprises insurance products, financial products, and banking products.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

For more information, see this patent: Riley, Timothy L. Intention identification in electronic documents. U.S. Patent Number 11461787, filed February 27, 2017, and published online on October 4, 2022. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11461787.PN.&OS=PN/11461787RS=PN/11461787

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