AN AUTOMATED ASSISTANT FOR ORGANIZING ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS

• US 20010042087A1
• Filed: 04/17/1998
• Published: 11/15/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 04/17/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: KEPHART, JEFFREY OWEN, WHITE, STEVE RICHARD, SEGAL, RICHARD BRIAN
• Granted Patent: US 7,051,277 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/530
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/353 into predefined classes
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A method of assisting a user with the task of categorizing a received electronic document into a collection includes the steps of classifying the document to obtain one or more most likely categorical labels; displaying, to the user, a representation of the one or more most likely categorical labels; receiving data, from the user, representative of a selected categorical label; and labeling the document within the collection with the selected categorical label. The electronic document can include an electronic mail message, a web page bookmark, an audio file or a video file.

Claims

1. A method of assisting a user with the task of categorizing an electronic document into a collection, comprising:

classifying the document to obtain one or more most likely categorical labels;

displaying, to the user, a representation of the one or more most likely categorical labels;

receiving data, from the user, representative of one or more selected categorical labels; and

labeling the document within the collection with the one or more selected categorical labels.

2. The method of

claim 1

further comprising the step of deriving categorization shortcuts from the one or more most likely categorical labels, wherein the displaying step comprises the step of displaying, to the user, the one or more categorization shortcuts.

3. The method of

claim 2

wherein the classifying step comprises the step of classifying, upon receipt, the document to obtain the one or more most likely categorical labels.

4. The method of

claim 3

wherein the deriving step comprises the step of deriving, upon receipt of the document, categorization shortcuts from the one or more most likely categorical labels.

5. The method of

claim 1

wherein the classifying step occurs simultaneously with the displaying step.

6. The method of

claim 1

wherein the classifying step comprises the step of classifying, upon invocation by the user, the document to obtain the one or more most likely categorical labels.

7. The method of

claim 1

wherein the labeling step comprises the step of storing the document in a folder or location corresponding to the selected categorical label.

8. The method of

claim 1

further comprising the step of displaying a standard list of all categorical labels, wherein the receiving step comprises the step of receiving, from the user, data representative of a selected categorical label from either the one or more displayed categorization shortcuts or the standard list.

9. The method of

claim 1

further comprising the step of re-training a classifier incrementally to adapt to modifications of the collection.

10. The method of

claim 9

, further comprising the step of training the classifier from scratch with a pre-existing collection of categorized documents.