IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), a leading global source of critical information and insight, today announced it has been granted a new patent for the question-answering technology behind its award-winning IHS Goldfire software, used by companies to accelerate research and power innovation.

Patent No. 8,666,730, labeled “Question-Answering System and Method Based on Semantic Labeling of Text Documents and User Questions,” further extends more than two decades of leadership by IHS Goldfire in precision search technologies. The patent was issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on March 4, 2014 and is valid through March 2030.

The patent covers the semantic concept “lenses” that IHS Goldfire uses to accelerate research. The lenses correlate with the human knowledge system, organizing and presenting answers to engineers’ or scientists’ questions – even questions they did not think to ask. These lenses surface concepts in documents’ text, enabling users to rapidly explore a concept’s definitions, applications, advantages, disadvantages and more.

Unlike today’s textual, question-answering technologies, which work as meta-search engines to search for text fragments by keyword and then try to extract answers similar to the text fragment, the IHS Goldfire approach is entirely unique – providing relevant answers, not lists of largely irrelevant documents. With IHS Goldfire, hundreds of different document types can be parsed by a semantic processor to extract semantic relationships like subject-action-object, cause-and-effect and dozens more. Answer-extraction patterns are then applied on top of the semantic data extracted from documents and answers are saved to a searchable database.

Studies show that engineers and other technical professionals can spend a third or more of their time looking for information scattered across numerous information sources. IHS Goldfire gives users a single point of access to standards, patents, technical journals, enterprise data and more as well as the ability to look across that knowledge for answers and insights. The concept lenses of IHS Goldfire dramatically improve upon current research practices which are time consuming, labor intensive and limited to the user’s own experience and understanding of where to look for answers, drastically cutting research time.

“Today’s engineers and technical professionals are underserved by traditional Internet and enterprise search applications, which help them find only the documents they already know exist,” said Igor Sovpel, chief scientist for IHS Goldfire. “With this patent, only IHS Goldfire gives users the ability to quickly synthesize optimal answers to a variety of complex challenges.”

“We are pleased to have our technology recognized by the United States Patent Office and congratulate our development team for this important accomplishment,” said Chad Hawkinson, vice president, product design for IHS. “Through their dedication, innovation and expertise, this team has given our customers a powerful technology and a competitive advantage.”

More information on IHS Goldfire can be found at http://www.ihs.com/products/design/software-methods/goldfire/index.aspx

About IHS (www.ihs.com)

IHS (NYSE: IHS) is the leading source of information, insight and analytics in critical areas that shape today’s business landscape. Businesses and governments in more than 165 countries around the globe rely on the comprehensive content, expert independent analysis and flexible delivery methods of IHS to make high-impact decisions and develop strategies with speed and confidence. IHS has been in business since 1959 and became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange in 2005. Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, USA, IHS is committed to sustainable, profitable growth and employs more than 8,000 people in 31 countries around the world.

IHS is a registered trademark of IHS Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. © 2014 IHS Inc. All rights reserved.