Method and apparatus for generating a new event directly from a document

• US 20070150513A1
• Filed: 12/14/2005
• Published: 06/28/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: May, Darrell, Hardy, Michael, Luu, Lap, Vanden Heuvel, David
• Granted Patent: US 8,819,034 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/123 Storage facilities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/284 Lexical analysis, e.g. tokenisation or collocates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/295 Named entity recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1097 Task assignment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/046 Interoperability with other network applications or services

Abstract

The application relates to the field of communications and more particularly to an apparatus and method of generating a new event from a document. In accordance with one aspect of the present application, recognized date/time references contained in a document allow a new event to be created. Such date/time references are automatically recognized and highlighted in the document. Selecting the highlighted information generates a menu selection, offering a user the ability to create a new event into which the date/time information will be inserted, along with other information extracted from the document. Specific date/time information in a document is simply correlated to a known date/time format in a lookup table, while relative terms like “tomorrow”, “today” or days of the week (ie. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.) are recognized by a date/time detector module and translated into a specific date/time. Using an embodiment of the present application, a new event can be readily generated.

Claims

1. An event providing apparatus for use in a network communications system, said apparatus comprising:

(a) a storage device for storing information;

(b) a detector module communicating with said storage device for receiving said information, said detector module adapted to detect the condition that at least a portion of said information could be mapped to an event; and

(c) a prompter module communicating with said detector module for automatically providing a user prompt related to said event upon detection by said detector module of said condition.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a mapper module communicating with said storage device and prompter module to map said at least a portion of said information to said event in response to user interaction with said user prompt.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said detector module further comprises a lexical analyzer communicating with a parser and a symbol table.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said event is taken from the group comprising:

a calendar event and a task event.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said detector module is a date/time detector module further adapted to:

(i) identify date and time entries in said information; and

(ii) provide a hyperlink for each of said identified date and time entries.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein, upon selection by a user of said hyperlink, said event is created.

7. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein, upon selection by a user of said hyperlink, said event is provided to the user.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said information is taken from the group comprising an email, a peer-to-peer personal identification number (PIN) message, a short message service (SMS) message, a multimedia messaging service (MMS) message, Instant Message, a web page or a word processing document.

9. The apparatus of claim 5 further comprising a lookup table for identifying a first type of said date and time entries, wherein said date/time detector module identifies said first type of said date and time entries, and wherein said first type of said date and time entries comprise a complete date and time format.

10. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein said date/time detector module identifies a second type of said date and time entries, and wherein said second type of said date and time entries comprises an incomplete date and time format or a relative date and time expression.

11. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein said relative date and time expression is taken from the group comprising today, tomorrow, yesterday, morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night.

12. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said detector module is a thread detector module, said document is an email message, and wherein said thread detector module is adapted to:

(i) identify a thread in said email message; and

(ii) if a defined threshold is exceeded in said identified thread, prompts a user to create said event.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein said defined threshold is a number of responses received in said thread.

14. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein said defined threshold is a length of time that said thread has been active.

15. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said network communications system includes a a server, and wherein said apparatus is resident in said server.

16. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said network communications system includes a wireless device, and wherein said apparatus is resident in said wireless device.

17. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said information is an email message, and wherein said new event has a notes section, and said mapping comprises inserting a link to said email message in the notes section of said event.

18. The apparatus of claim 17 wherein said link is a MIME reference ID associated with said email message.

19. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said event is provided in a wireless device.

20. In a network communications system, a method of creating a new event comprising:

(a) storing a document in a storage device;

(b) receiving said document from said storage device into a detector module;

(c) analyzing said document; and

(d) based on identified information in said document creating said new event.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein said document is taken from the group comprising an email, a peer-to-peer personal identification number (PIN) message, short message service (SMS) message, multimedia messaging service (MMS) message, Instant Message, web page or word processing document.

22. The method of claim 20 wherein said detector module is a date/time detector module, wherein said step of analyzing comprises searching in a lookup table to identify a first type of date and time entries, and wherein said first type of date and time entries comprise a complete date and time format.

23. The method of claim 20 wherein said detector module is a date/time detector module, and wherein said step of analyzing comprises processing in a lexical analyzer and a parser to identify a second type of date and time entries wherein said second type of date and time entries comprises an incomplete data and time format or a relative date and time expression.

24. The method of claim 20 wherein said new event is taken from the group comprising a calendar event or a task.

25. The method of claims 23 wherein said step of creating comprises;

(a) generating a hyperlink for each of said identified first type of date and time entries and each of said identified second type of date time entries;

(b) upon selection of said hyperlink by a user, presenting the user a choice of event type to be created;

(c) upon selection of said choice of event type by the user, opening an application capable of creating said new event of said choice of event type; and

(d) mapping specified fields in said document to specified fields in said new event.

26. The method of claim 25 wherein said specified fields in said document are taken from the group comprising subject, to, from and body.

27. The method of claim 25 wherein said specified fields in said new event are taken from the group comprising subject, attendees and event notes.

28. The method of claim 20 wherein said detector module is a thread detector module, said document is an email message, and wherein said step of analyzing comprises identifying a thread in said email message.

29. The method of claim 28 wherein said step of creating comprises:

(a) determining if a defined threshold contained in said thread has been exceeded; and

(b) if said defined threshold has been exceeded, prompting a user to create said new event.

30. The method of claim 29 wherein said prompting comprises presenting a user with a menu and, upon selection of an entry in said menu by said user, mapping specified fields in said message to specified fields in said new event.

31. The method of claim 29 wherein said defined threshold is a number of responses received in said thread.

32. The method of claim 29 wherein said defined threshold is a length of time that said thread has been active.

33. The method of claim 20 wherein said network communications system is a wireless network, and wherein said method is carried out in a server communicating to said wireless network.

34. The method of claim 20 wherein said network communications system is a wireless network, and wherein said method is carried out in a wireless device.

35. The method of claim 20 wherein said new event has a notes section, and said creating comprising inserting a link to said document in the notes section of said new event.

36. The method of claim 35 wherein said document is an email message, and wherein said link is a MIME reference ID associated with said email message.