System and method for rendering data

• US 20070192265A1
• Filed: 04/20/2007
• Published: 08/16/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Donnelley Financial, LLC (Donnelley Financial Solutions, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: EDGAR Online, Inc. (RR Donnelley & Sons Company)
• Inventors: Strausberg, Marc, Barrett, Leslie, Krugman, Robert, Chopin, Stefan
• Granted Patent: US 7,917,841 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/20
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/18 of spreadsheets form-filling G06F40/174
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A method of viewing information associated with data in a spreadsheet, includes providing a document including data and information associated with the data, parsing the document to retrieve the associated information, processing the associated information to break the associated information down into at least one sentence, categorizing the at least one sentence to determine whether the at least one sentence corresponds to at least one category in a taxonomy corresponding to the data, assigning an association strength to the categorized at least one sentence, the association strength indicating a likelihood that the categorized at least one sentence actually corresponds to the at least one category in the taxonomy, filtering the at least one categorized sentence based on the association strength to determine whether to match the categorized at least one sentence with the at least one category in the taxonomy and outputting only the categorized at least one sentence matched with the at least one category in the taxonomy.

Claims

1. A method of viewing information associated with data in a spreadsheet, comprising:

providing a document including data and information associated with the data;

parsing the document to retrieve the associated information;

processing the associated information to break the associated information down into at least one sentence;

categorizing the at least one sentence to determine whether the at least one sentence corresponds to at least one category in a taxonomy corresponding to the data;

assigning an association strength to the categorized at least one sentence, the association strength indicating a likelihood that the categorized at least one sentence actually corresponds to the at least one category in the taxonomy;

filtering the at least one categorized sentence based on the association strength to determine whether to match the categorized at least one sentence with the at least one category in the taxonomy; and

outputting only the categorized at least one sentence matched with the at least one category in the taxonomy.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the association strength is represented as a number between zero and one.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein closer an association strength is to one, a higher likelihood that the categorized at least one sentence actually corresponds to the at least one category in the taxonomy.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the associated information comprises at least one of footnotes, head notes and management discussion.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising converting the retrieved associated information into a text file prior to processing the associated information.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the filtering comprises a “

best match”

type filter in which only a match with a highest association strength is output.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the filtering comprises a “

matches over n %”

type filter in which only matches with association strengths above a predefined value (n) are output.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the matches with association strengths above a predefined value (n) are output in order from highest association strength to lowest association strength.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the filtering comprises an “

all matches found”

type filter in which all matches having an association strength are output.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the matches are output in order from highest association strength to lowest association strength.

11. A system for viewing information associated with data in a spreadsheet, comprising:

a module for providing a document including data and information associated with the data;

a module for parsing the document to retrieve the associated information;

a module for processing the associated information to break the associated information down into at least one sentence;

a module for categorizing the at least one sentence to determine whether the at least one sentence corresponds to at least one category in a taxonomy corresponding to the data;

a module for assigning an association strength to the categorized at least one sentence, the association strength indicating a likelihood that the categorized at least one sentence actually corresponds to the at least one category in the taxonomy;

a module for filtering the at least one categorized sentence based on the association strength to determine whether to match the categorized at least one sentence with the at least one category in the taxonomy; and

a module for outputting only the categorized at least one sentence matched with the at least one category in the taxonomy.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the association strength is represented as a number between zero and one.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein closer an association strength is to one, a higher likelihood that the categorized at least one sentence actually corresponds to the at least one category in the taxonomy.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the associated information comprises at least one of footnotes, head notes and management discussion.

15. The system of claim 11, further comprising a module for converting the retrieved associated information into a text file prior to processing the associated information.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the filtering module comprises a “

best match”

type filter in which only a match with a highest association strength is output.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the filtering module comprises a “

matches over n %”

type filter in which only matches with association strengths above a predefined value (n) are Output.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the matches with association strengths above a predefined value (n) are output in order from highest association strength to lowest association strength.

19. The system of claim 11, wherein the filtering module comprises an “

all matches found”

type filter in which all matches having an association strength are output.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the matches are output in order from highest association strength to lowest association strength.

21. A computer recording medium including computer executable code for viewing information associated with data in a spreadsheet, the computer executable code comprising:

code for providing a document including data and information associated with the data;

code for parsing the document to retrieve the associated information;

code for processing the associated information to break the associated information down into at least one sentence;

code for categorizing the at least one sentence to determine whether the at least one sentence corresponds to at least one category in a taxonomy corresponding to the data;

code for assigning an association strength to the categorized at least one sentence, the association strength indicating a likelihood that the categorized at least one sentence actually corresponds to the at least one category in the taxonomy;

code for filtering the at least one categorized sentence based on the association strength to determine whether to match the categorized at least one sentence with the at least one category in the taxonomy; and

code for outputting only the categorized at least one sentence matched with the at least one category in the taxonomy.

22. The computer recording medium of claim 21, wherein the association strength is represented as a number between zero and one.

23. The computer recording medium of claim 22, wherein closer an association strength is to one, a higher likelihood that the categorized at least one sentence actually corresponds to the at least one category in the taxonomy.

24. The computer recording medium of claim 21, wherein the associated information comprises at least one of footnotes, head notes and management discussion.

25. The computer recording medium of claim 21, further comprising code for converting the retrieved associated information into a text file prior to processing the associated information.

26. The computer recording medium of claim 21, wherein the filtering comprises a “

best match”

type filter in which only a match with a highest association strength is output.

27. The computer recording medium of claim 21, wherein the filtering comprises a “

matches over n %”

type filter in which only matches with association strengths above a predefined value (n) are output.

28. The computer recording medium of claim 27, wherein the matches with association strengths above a predefined value (n) are output in order from highest association strength to lowest association strength.

29. The computer recording medium of claim 21, wherein the filtering comprises an “

all matches found”

type filter in which all matches having an association strength are output.

30. The computer recording medium of claim 29, wherein the matches are output in order from highest association strength to lowest association strength.