Method and apparatus for performing planbased dialog

(19)

(11)

EP 1 199 630 A8

(12)	CORRECTED EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION

(48)	Corrigendum issued on:
	31.07.2002 Bulletin 2002/31

(43)	Date of publication:
	24.04.2002 Bulletin 2002/17

(21)	Application number: 01121845.0

(22)	Date of filing: 11.09.2001

(51)	International Patent Classification (IPC)⁷: G06F 9/44

(84)	Designated Contracting States:
	AT BE CH CY DE DK ES FI FR GB GR IE IT LI LU MC NL PT SE TR
	Designated Extension States:
	AL LT LV MK RO SI

(30)

Priority:

14.09.2000 US 662242

(71)	Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
	Redmond, WA 98052 (US)

(72)	Inventor:
	Wang, Kuansan Bellevue, Washington 98006 (US)

(74)	Representative: Grünecker, Kinkeldey, Stockmair & Schwanhäusser Anwaltssozietät
	Maximilianstrasse 58 80538 München 80538 München (DE)

(54)	Method and apparatus for performing planbased dialog

(57) The present invention provides a dialog system in which the subsystems are integrated under a single technology model. In particular, each of the sub-systems uses stochastic modeling to identify a probability for its respective output. The combined probabilities identify a most probable action to be taken by the dialog system given the latest input from the user and the past dialog states. An additional aspect of the present invention is an embodiment in which the sub-systems communicate with one another through XML pages, thus allowing the sub-systems to be distributed across a distributed network.