US 6,983,240 B2
Method and apparatus for generating normalized representations of strings
Salah Ait-Mokhtar, Grenoble (France); Jean-Pierre Chanod, Grenoble (France); and Eric Gaussier, Eybens (France)
Assigned to Xerox Corporation, Stamford, Conn. (US)
Filed on Dec. 18, 2000, as Appl. No. 9/738,319.
Prior Publication US 2002/0116169 A1, Aug. 22, 2002
Int. Cl. G06F 17/27 (2006.01); G06F 7/00 (2006.01); G06F 12/00 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 704—9 19 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for normalizing input strings, the method comprising the steps of:
(a) receiving the input strings;
(b) linguistically analyzing the input strings to generate a first representation of each of the input strings; each of the first representations including linguistic information;
(c) skeletising each of the first representations to generate a corresponding second representation for each of the input strings; said skeletising step replacing the linguistic information with abstract variables in each of the second representations; and
(d) storing the second representation as normalized representations of the input strings.