US Patent 7533089 Hybrid approach for query recommendation in conversation systems

Techniques are disclosed for combining natural language generation with query retrieval for context appropriate query recommendation. For example, a computer-implemented method for generating a recommended query for a conversation system in response to an original user query, wherein at least a portion of the original user query is not understandable to a query interpretation process, includes the following steps. Recommendation results are computed, in response to the original user query, using a natural language generation-based recommendation process. Recommendation results are computed, in response to the original user query, using a retrieval-based recommendation process. A recommended query is generated based on consideration of at least a portion of the natural language generation-based recommendation results and at least a portion of the retrieval-based recommendation results.