Automated communication design construction system

• US 10,503,972 B2
• Filed: 03/05/2018
• Issued: 12/10/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/05/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Shutterfly, LLC
• Original Assignee: Shutterfly, LLC
• Inventors: Reihl, Aaron P., Vangapally, Sairam, Rasset, Aaron Gregory
• Primary Examiner(s): Yang, Jianxun
• Application Number:
  US15/911,564
• Publication Number:
  US 20190272417A1
• Time in Patent Office: 645 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/295 Named entity recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/82 using neural networks
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/62 Text, e.g. of license plates, overlay texts or captions on TV images
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/413 Classification of content, e.g. text, photographs or tables
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/414 Extracting the geometrical structure, e.g. layout tree; Block segmentation, e.g. bounding boxes for graphics or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/416 Extracting the logical structure, e.g. chapters, sections or page numbers; Identifying elements of the document, e.g. authors

Abstract

An automated communication design analysis and construction system includes that includes one or more intelligent communication design servers, comprising: a normalization module that converts communication content files for different recipients to normalized intermediate format files; an objects identification and quantification module that identifies text objects and image objects in the normalized intermediate format files; a cross recipient group analysis module configured to identify static global objects that are invariant between recipients, data variables, and variable global objects that vary between recipients in the normalized intermediate format files; and an intelligent communication content learning and constructing engine that can construct standard communication design files based on the static global objects, the data variables, and the variable global objects. A data storage stores the communication content files and the standard communication design files. A communication resource allocation server sends the standard communication design files to one or more product fulfillment centers.

Claims

1. An automated communication design analysis and construction system, comprising:

one or more intelligent communication design servers, comprising;

a normalization module configured to convert communication content files for different recipients to normalized intermediate format files;

an objects identification and quantification module configured to identify text objects and image objects in the normalized intermediate format files;

a cross recipient group analysis module configured to identify static global objects that are invariant between recipients, data variables, and variable global objects that vary between recipients in the normalized intermediate format files;

an intelligent communication content learning and constructing engine configured to construct standard communication design files based on the static global objects, the data variables, and the variable global objects; and

a zone classification module configured to automatically identify zones in the normalized intermediate format files according to the text object, logos, and the image objects identified in the normalized intermediate format files by the objects identification and quantification module, wherein the zone classification module is configured to classify the zones into zone types based on behaviors across recipients;

a data storage configured to store the communication content files and the standard communication design files, wherein the data storage comprises a content store configured to store standard content for a zone type; and

a communication resource allocation server configured to send the standard communication design files to one or more product fulfillment centers,

wherein physical mailing pieces to be mailed to the recipients are printed and finished based on the standard communication design files.

2. The automated communication design construction system of claim 1, wherein the data storage is configured to store a unified file structure for the normalized intermediate format files, wherein the unified file structure defines the static global objects, the data variables, and the variable global objects for communications to different recipients.

3. The automated communication design construction system of claim 1, wherein the intelligent communication content learning and constructing engine is configured to automatically recognize font type, font size, and font color of a text in the text objects.

4. The automated communication design construction system of claim 1, wherein the intelligent communication content learning and constructing engine is configured to automatically identify wireframes, page behaviors, and paragraph styles within the zones.

5. The automated communication design construction system of claim 4, wherein the static global objects include wireframes, page behaviors, and paragraph styles that are common to different recipients.

6. The automated communication design construction system of claim 4, wherein the variable global objects include wireframes, page behaviors, and paragraph styles that vary between recipients.

7. The automated communication design construction system of claim 4, wherein the data storage is configured to store a unified file structure for the normalized intermediate format files, wherein the unified file structure defines the wireframes, the page behaviors, and the paragraph styles for communications to different recipients.

8. The automated communication design construction system of claim 1, wherein the standard content is based on branding, legal, and regulatory requirements.

9. The automated communication design construction system of claim 1, wherein the static global objects include text, logos, and images that are common to different recipients.

10. The automated communication design construction system of claim 1, wherein the variable global objects include text, logos, and images that vary between recipients.

11. The automated communication design construction system of claim 1, wherein the data variables vary between recipients.

12. The automated communication design construction system of claim 1, further comprising:

a channel classification module configured to automatically classify the standard communication design files based on communication channel types, wherein the communication channel types include physical prints, e-mails, or web form.

13. The automated communication design construction system of claim 1, further comprising:

a recipient matching module configured to automatically sort the normalized intermediate format files into groups each representing all communication documents for a single recipient, wherein the recipient matching module is configured to automatically match each of the groups of normalized intermediate format files to a recipient.

14. The automated communication design construction system of claim 1, wherein the cross recipient group analysis module is configured to automatically analyze similar zones in the normalized intermediate format files between different recipients to identify static global objects, data variables, and variable global objects, wherein the similar zones have a same content type and locations in respective page layouts.

15. The automated communication design construction system of claim 14, wherein the cross recipient group analysis module is configured to identify static global objects, data variables, and variable global objects based on whether content in the similar zones the normalized intermediate format files vary across recipients.

16. The automated communication design construction system of claim 1, wherein the cross recipient group analysis module is configured to automatically identify a common wireframe in the normalized intermediate format files between different recipients based on locations of the zones and content in the zones.

17. The automated communication design construction system of claim 1, further comprising:

a cross recipient group analysis module configured to automatically identify white spaces in the normalized intermediate format files using multi-class classification machine learning, wherein pre-stored content can be inserted into the white spaces.