Method and apparatus for sociological data mining

• US 20030182310A1
• Filed: 02/04/2003
• Published: 09/25/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Adobe Inc.
• Original Assignee: Cataphora Incorporated
• Inventors: Holsinger, David J., Roberts, Steven L., Charnock, Elizabeth
• Granted Patent: US 7,143,091 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/104.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/34 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/38 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access

Abstract

A processing system for retrieving interrelated documents is described. The system comprises a document repository for storing a plurality of documents, a metadata repository for storing a plurality of metadata elements to represent relations between the documents, and a sociological analysis engine to identify relationships between the documents using the metadata elements from the metadata repository.

Claims

1. A processing system for retrieving interrelated documents, comprising:

a document repository for storing a plurality of documents;

a metadata repository for storing a plurality of metadata elements to represent relations between the documents;

a sociological analysis engine to identify relationships between the documents using the metadata elements from the metadata repository.

2. The processing system recited in claim 1, wherein the metadata includes an actor.

3. The processing system of claim 2, wherein the sociological analysis engine automatically resolves references to an actor who has more than one electronic identity.

4. The processing system recited in claim 2, wherein the sociological analysis engine automatically resolves references to an actor who has more than one electronic personality.

5. The processing system recited in claim 1, wherein the sociological analysis engine detects missing data by reference to other documents within the corpus.

6. The processing system recited in claim 1, wherein the sociological analysis engine removes or otherwise makes unavailable documents or parts thereof deemed by the engine to be of a particular content type.

7. The processing system recited in claim 1, wherein the sociological analysis engine categorizes a plurality of documents by iteratively attempting to match the documents to multiple ontology classes, both individually and in combination.

8. The processing system recited in claim 1, wherein the sociological analysis engine determines the most likely correct term in a document that has been input using a process that is subject to error.

9. A method for identifying whether a plurality of documents are interrelated, the method comprising the steps of:

extracting metadata from the documents and storing it in a repository;

computing metadata for representing interrelations between the documents and storing the metadata in the repository;

indexing the content of the documents by means of a search engine; and

in response to a search query, identifying a plurality of relevant, interrelated documents stored in the repository.

10. The method as recited in claim 9, wherein the sociological analysis engine automatically resolves references to individuals who have more than one electronic identity.