EMBEDDED RULE ENGINE FOR RENDERING TEXT AND OTHER APPLICATIONS

• US 20070156618A1
• Filed: 04/27/2006
• Published: 07/05/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/09/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cerence Operating Company (Cerence Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Tegic Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Meurs, Pim
• Granted Patent: US 7,587,378 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/47
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0237 using prediction or retrieval techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/191 Automatic line break hyphenation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/58 Use of machine translation, e.g. for multi-lingual retrieval, for server-side translation for client devices or for real-time translation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/454 Multi-language systems; Localisation; Internationalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/025 Extracting rules from data

Abstract

A computing apparatus includes a display to present human-readable information and a user input facility. A rule data store contains a statement of rules governing prescribed aspects of presenting data upon the display. These aspects include those aspects subject to variation by language whenever the following changes: type of data, and/or nature of user-operation being performed involving the data. A rules engine is configured to implement the rules. One or more common programs are configured to recognize conditions for applying the rules, and in response, to invoke the rules engine.

Claims

1. A text input device for receiving user inputs, for predicting an intended user text input therefrom, and for rendering text and performing other, related functions in response thereto, comprising:

at least one predictive text input language database, comprising;

multiple embedded rules that are used in connection with user input of text into said device for correct display and additional processing of said inputted information;

where the rules comprise any of bitmapped font and layout rules, localization rules, collating rules, and other such rules;

a language agnostic device platform for operation in concert with any of a plurality of text input language databases, said device platform comprising;

a first engine for interpreting said rules in connection with said user inputs and for performing associated functions, in connection with information linked to said user inputs in said text input language database; and

a second engine for rendering predicted user inputs in accordance with said bitmapped font and layout rules for display on said device;

where said fonts and said rules are distributed as part of said language database.

2. The device of claim 1, where the text input language further comprises:

disambiguating information for recognizing user input information;

3. A computing apparatus, comprising:

a display to present human-readable information;

a user input facility;

one or more common programs responsive to predetermined conditions to invoke a rules engine and pass input data to the rules engine;

a set of rules governing transformation of input data whose presentation can vary from language to language due to data type, nature of user-operation being performed involving the data, or both, said transformation including manipulation of the input data into output data consistent with a designated language;

a rules engine configured to perform operations comprising;

receiving the input data;

identifying at least one rule applicable to the input data;

applying the identified rule to manipulate the input data to output data consistent with a designated language;

returning the output data to the common program that invoked the rules engine.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, where the variation from language to language includes variations across at least one of the following:

dialects, locales.

5. The apparatus of claim 3, further comprising:

a selectively activated update module programmed to download updates from a remote location and substitute the updates for at least part of the set of rules to cause the rules engine to output data consistent with a different language.

6. The apparatus of claim 3, where the rules further govern transformation of input data whose presentation can vary from language to language due to font.

7. The apparatus of claim 3, where the rules include disambiguation guidelines for resolving user input with multiple interpretations against a vocabulary in the designated language.

8. The apparatus of claim 3, where said manipulation of manipulation of input data into output data consistent with a designated language includes:

displaying graphics elements consistent with the designated language.

9. The apparatus of claim 3, where the rules comprise regular expressions prescribing different manipulations of input strings to output strings.

10. The apparatus of claim 3, where said manipulation of manipulation of input data into output data consistent with a designated language includes:

replacing one or more characters of input data by one or more different characters.

11. The apparatus of claim 3, where:

the input data includes a string of characters;

said manipulation of manipulation of input data into output data consistent with a designated language includes reordering characters of the input data.

12. The apparatus of claim 3, where said manipulation of manipulation of input data into output data consistent with a designated language includes:

finding syllable boundaries consistent with the designated language;

hyphenating text in a manner consistent with the designated language.

13. The apparatus of claim 3, where said manipulation of manipulation of input data into output data consistent with a designated language includes:

sorting text according to the designated language.

14. The apparatus of claim 3, where said manipulation of manipulation of input data into output data consistent with a designated language includes:

observing a format for representing one of the following in a manner consistent with the designated language;

numbers, currency, date, time.

15. The apparatus of claim 3, where said manipulation of manipulation of input data into output data consistent with a designated language includes:

representing menu text according to the designated language.

16. The apparatus of claim 3, where said manipulation of manipulation of input data into output data consistent with a designated language includes:

representing messages initiated by the common programs in the designated language.

17. A computing apparatus, comprising:

a display to present human-readable information;

a user input facility;

one or more common programs configured to invoke a rules engine responsive to a requirement to present data via the display where such data can vary from language to language due to data type, nature of user-operation being performed involving the data, or both;

a set of rules, each rule specifying a manipulation of input data to output data compliant with a designated language;

a rules engine configured to implement the rules responsive to invocation by one of the common programs.

18. A computing apparatus, comprising:

a display to present human-readable information;

a user input facility;

a rule data store containing a statement of rules governing prescribed aspects of presenting data upon the display, the prescribed aspects including those aspects subject to variation across different languages whenever at least one of the following changes;

type of data, nature of user-operation being performed involving the data;

a rules engine configured to implement the rules;

one or more common programs programmed to invoke the rules engine responsive to prescribed conditions.

19. A method of operating a computing apparatus, comprising operations of:

producing a computing apparatus that comprises;

a display to present human-readable information;

a user input facility;

a rule data store;

a rules engine configured to implement rules of the rules data store;

one or more common programs programmed to invoke the rules engine responsive to prescribed conditions;

a selectively activated updater;

responsive to activation of the updater, the updater obtaining updates from a remote location and installing the updates in the rule data store to provide therein a statement of rules governing prescribed aspects of presenting data upon the display in compliance with a designated language, the prescribed aspects including those aspects subject to variation across different languages whenever at least one of the following changes;

type of data, nature of user-operation being performed involving the data.

20. The method of claim 19, where:

the producing operation includes producing the rule data store with a first statement of rules governing prescribed aspects of presenting data upon the display in compliance with a first designated language;

the operation of obtaining updates includes providing a second statement of rules governing prescribed aspects of presenting data upon the display in compliance with second designated language.

21. The method of claim 19, the operations further comprising charging a fee for providing the updates.