US 11,899,675 B2
Machine reading comprehension system for answering queries related to a document
Mahmoud Adada, Montreal (CA); Andrew James McNamara, Cambridge (CA); Kaheer Suleman, Cambridge (CA); Xihui Lin, Montreal (CA); and En Hui Zhuang, Longueuil (CA)
Assigned to Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US)
Filed by Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US)
Filed on Jul. 1, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/856,257.
Application 17/856,257 is a continuation of application No. 15/808,540, filed on Nov. 9, 2017, granted, now 11,409,749.
Prior Publication US 2022/0335051 A1, Oct. 20, 2022
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. G06F 16/24 (2019.01); G06F 16/2457 (2019.01); G06N 20/00 (2019.01); G06F 16/93 (2019.01); G06F 16/332 (2019.01); G06F 16/951 (2019.01); G06F 40/205 (2020.01); G06F 40/258 (2020.01)
CPC G06F 16/24578 (2019.01) [G06F 16/3329 (2019.01); G06F 16/93 (2019.01); G06F 16/951 (2019.01); G06F 40/205 (2020.01); G06F 40/258 (2020.01); G06N 20/00 (2019.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A machine reading comprehension system, comprising:
processing circuitry; and
one or more storage devices for storing instructions, that when executed by the processing circuitry, cause the machine reading comprehension system to perform a method comprising:
in response to a received query, dividing a document into multiple sections that each comprise a portion of the document;
processing, by the processing circuitry, each section separately to determine a first score that indicates the section provides an answer to the received query;
processing, by the processing circuitry, each section separately to determine a second score that indicates the section provides an answer to the received query;
processing each section in a subset of the processed sections separately to determine a third score that indicates whether the section provides an answer to the received query, wherein each section in the subset of the processed sections is included in the subset of the processed sections based on a ranking of a combination of the first score and the second score, wherein the processing of each section further comprises:
separating a section into sentences;
encoding, by the processing circuitry, each sentence in the section and the received query;
processing, by the processing circuitry, the encoded sentences to determine one or more relevant sentences in the section that are relevant to the encoded query;
for each of the one or more relevant sentences, comparing a relevant sentence to the encoded query to produce the third score; and
determining a predicted answer to the received query based on each third score.