Document quotation indexing system and method

• US 20060287971A1
• Filed: 06/15/2005
• Published: 12/21/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Geronimo Development Corporation
• Original Assignee: Geronimo Development Corporation
• Inventors: Armstrong, Orin Russell
• Granted Patent: US 8,805,781 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/382 using citations hypermedia G06F16/94
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations

Abstract

A computerized system and method is presented for analyzing quotations made in a quoting document of text originally found in a source document. The present invention analyzes the quoting document for quoted text, searches the source document for that text, and stores the existence of the quotation in association with the source document. When displaying the source document, a list of text items that were quoted by another document is presented sorted by frequency of quotation. Quoted text is also highlighted when the original text of the source document is displayed. Hyperlinking is allowed between items of quoted text by the user and a list of documents that have quoted that text. From this list the full text of a quoting document may be displayed. The frequency of quotations taken from a source document can also be used to rank documents in search results.

Claims

1. A computerized method of presenting documents to an end user comprising:

a) identifying in a source document at least one quoted text portion quoted by a quoting document, thereby leaving a non-quoted text portion that was not quoted by any quoting document, wherein the quoted text portion and the non-quoted text portion both have a context in which they are found in the source document

b) displaying through a computerized interface the source document;

c) visually indicating the quoted text portion during the display as to visually distinguish the quoted text portion as different than the non-quoted text portion.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of visually indicating the quoted text portion is accomplished by:

i) creating a list of all quoted text portions identified in the source document, and

ii) displaying the list of all quoted text portions outside of their context within the source document while also displaying the source document in its entirety including the quoted text portions in context.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of visually indicating the quoted text portion is accomplished by:

i) displaying in a first manner the non-quoted text portion within its context of the source document,

ii) displaying in a second manner the quoted text portion within its context of the source document, and

iii) the first and second manner of displaying being different so as to visually identify those portions of the source document that contain quoted text portions.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of visually indicating the quoted text portion is accomplished by:

i) creating a list of all quoted text portions identified in the source document,

ii) displaying the list of all quoted text portions outside of their context within the source document,

iii) displaying in a first manner the non-quoted text portion within its context of the source document,

iv) displaying in a second manner the quoted text portion within its context of the source document, and

v) the first and second manner of displaying being different so as to visually identify those portions of the source document that contain quoted text portions

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the original source text is stored in a text file containing tags, wherein each quoted text portion is identified through quotation tags that contain a unique quotation identifier.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein a separate data file is associated with each text file.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the data file contains a plurality of records, each record having information about one quoting document that quotes at least one of the quoted text portions in the original source text.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the records contain the quotation identifiers used in the tags to identify the relevant quoted text portion.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

c) allowing a user to selected one of the quoted text portions; and

d) displaying a list of quoting documents that quote the selected quoted text portion.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the list of quoting documents is displayed in a contextual menu.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

e) allowing a user to select one of the quoting documents from the list of quoting documents;

f) displaying original source text for the selected one of the quoting documents.

12. A computerized method of identifying an item of text in a source document quoted in a quoting document, the method comprising:

a) opening the quoting document in a computer program;

b) searching the quoting document for a quotation and identifying the item of text as the quotation;

c) determining the source document from text near the quotation in the quoting document;

d) opening the source document in a computer program;

e) locating the item of quoted text in the source document; and

f) using a data construct to store information about the existence and location of the quoted text in the source document.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the data construct consists of tags placed around the item of quoted text in the source document.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the tags contain a unique identifier for the item of quoted text in the source document

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the data construct is external to the source document and indicates the location of the item of quoted text using an offset from a known location in the source document.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

g) assigning a unique identifier for the item of quoted text in the source document.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

h) storing the unique identifier for the item of quoted text in the data construct.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

i) placing tags around the quotation in the quoting documents, the tag including the unique identifier for the quotation.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the tags in the quoting document includes a document identifier for the source document.

20. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

h) creating a data record associated with the source document, the data record containing the unique identifier for the quotation and a document identifier for the quoting document.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the data record is stored in a data file associated with the source document.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the data file and the source document are stored as separate files in a file system using unique filenames, and further wherein both the data file filename and the source document filename share a common text component indicative of the source document.

23. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

g) counting the number of items of quoted text tagged within the source document; and

h) using the count to sort documents returned in a search result set.

24. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

g) executing a user search based upon a search query;

h) returning the source document and at least one other found document in response to the search query;

i) comparing the item of quoted text in the source document with the search query;

j) using the results of the comparison in step i) to sort the source document and the found documents for presentation to a user.

25. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

g) repeating steps a-f on a plurality of quoting documents and source documents, thereby creating a plurality of items of quoted text;

h) indexing the plurality of items of quoted text for full-text searching;

i) executing a full-text search on the items of quoted text without searching the source documents and the quoting documents; and

j) returning in response to the full-text search the source documents related to the items of quoted text found in the full-text search.

26. A computerized system for storing information about quotations comprising:

a) a plurality of electronically stored text documents including a source document that contains an item of text and a first quoting document that quotes the item of text as a quotation originating from the source document;

b) a data record associated with the source document, the data record having;

i) a first quotation identifier for uniquely identifying the item of quoted text in the source document, and

ii) a first document identifier uniquely identifying the first quoting document.

27. The system of claim 26, further comprising a second quoting document that quotes the item of text as a quotation originating from the source document, and further comprising a second record having the first quotation identifier and a second document identifier uniquely identifying the second quoting document.

28. The system of claim 26, wherein the data record is stored in a data file associated with the source document.

29. The system of claim 26, wherein the data record is stored within the source document text file.

30. The system of claim 26, wherein the source document contains tags surrounding the item of text, the tags containing the first quotation identifier.