INFORMATION ORGANIZATION AND NAVIGATION BY USER-GENERATED ASSOCIATIVE OVERLAYS

• US 20070176947A1
• Filed: 03/16/2007
• Published: 08/02/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qwest Communications International Incorporated (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Qwest Communications International Incorporated (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kenyon, Jeffrey
• Granted Patent: US 7,930,324 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/629
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

Digital information objects in a digital information space are linked through the use of an overlay. A dynamic association between an accessed digital information object and each concept node in the overlay is established if the accessed digital information object and the overlay include at least one common concept. Links to other digital information objects are displayed if those objects are represented by information nodes within the overlay linked to a concept node expressing a common concept. At least a portion of the overlay may be exported for incorporation into other overlays or for various information processing functions.

Claims

1. A system for linking together digital information objects of a digital information space comprising:

at least one overlay maintained outside of the digital information space, at least a portion of the at least one overlay passed to an agent for information processing;

at least one concept node within each overlay, each concept node expressing one concept, each concept defined by at least one keyword; and

at least one information node within each overlay, each information node representing one of the digital information objects;

wherein a link between an accessed digital information object in the digital information space and each of the at least one concept node is established by the user if the accessed digital information object and the overlay include at least one common concept, the link being omitted absent at least one common concept.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein information processing comprises generating a list of new potential information nodes based on any portion of the at least one overlay passed to the agent.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein information processing comprises creating a customized news collection based on any portion of the at least one overlay passed to the agent.