METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR CREATING A SEMANTIC OBJECT

• US 20090192976A1
• Filed: 01/23/2009
• Published: 07/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/20/2002
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Fiver LLC
• Original Assignee: Radar Networks Incorporated (EVRI Incorporated)
• Inventors: Thorisson, Kristinn R., Spivack, Nova T.
• Application Number:
  US12/359,236
• Publication Number:
  US 20090192976A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/55
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/80 of semi-structured data, e.g. markup language structured data such as SGML, XML or HTML content-based retrieval of web data G06F16/95
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0222 During e-commerce, i.e. online transactions
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/955 Object-oriented
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure

Abstract

Among other disclosure, a knowledge network and semcards enabling intelligent matching of offers and requests, involving all types of information and knowledge, including information such as classified ads, data about products and services, or knowledge, expertise, ideas, suggestions, opinions, and other forms of tacit knowledge is described.

Claims

1. A method for creating a semantic object to represent a target referent of an object type, the semantic object being stored on a computer readable medium, the method, comprising,

creating a semantic object of a semantic object type to represent the target referent of the object type, the semantic object having multiple meta-tags that are each associable with metadata;

wherein, the semantic object of the semantic object type is suitable to represent the object type of the target referent;

associating a meta-tag of the multiple meta-tags with the metadata;

wherein the meta-tag or the metadata is definable using an ontology;

extracting a portion of the content from the target referent for inclusion in the semantic object; and

subsequently determining that the target referent has been revised, updating metadata associated with one or more meta-tags of the multiple meta-tags of the semantic object based on the revision.

2. A method for creating a semantic object to represent a target referent of an object type, the semantic object being stored on a computer readable medium, the method, comprising,

creating a semantic object of a semantic object type to represent the target referent of the object type, the semantic object having multiple meta-tags that are each associable with metadata;

wherein, the semantic object of the semantic object type is suitable to represent the object type of the target referent;

associating a meta-tag of the multiple meta-tags with the metadata;

wherein the meta-tag or the metadata is definable using an ontology; and

extracting a portion of the content from the target referent for inclusion in the semantic object;

wherein the extraction is part of a data mining performed on selected resources including the ontology or the Internet.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising, subsequently determining that the target referent has been revised, updating metadata associated with one or more meta-tags of the multiple meta-tags of the semantic object based on the revision.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising, sharing the semantic object with another user and updating the metadata associated with the one or more meta-tags of the multiple meta-tags of the semantic object to reflect a change made by the another user.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein, the metadata is updated based on a revision of the target referent performed via a web browser.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

maintaining a table of mappings between a plurality of semantic objects and a respective set of target referents; and

further providing a daemon that watches for changes and updates the association table accordingly.

7. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

maintaining a pointer from the semantic objects such that the pointer contains an address of a location of the target referent; and

updating the address in the pointer if one or more of the semantic object and the target referent are moved.

8. The method of claim 2, wherein, the semantic object or the metadata is encrypted or digitally signed.

9. The method of claim 2, wherein, the semantic object is linked to the target referent via a link semantic object.

10. The method of claim 2, wherein, the semantic object is assigned a time to live after which the semantic object expires.

11. The method of claim 2, wherein, the metadata comprises an identity section including an owner or an author of the semantic object.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein, the identity section includes a recipient, a group, or a list of users of the semantic object.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein, the identity section includes one or more of, parties who have rated the semantic object, parties that have been matched to the semantic object, and parties who have annotated the semantic object.

14. The method of claim 2, wherein, the target referent is a digital object comprising streaming media or other multimedia content.

15. The method of claim 2, wherein, the target referent is a digital object comprising, one or more of, email, instant messages, and multimedia content.

16. The method of claim 2, wherein, the target referent is a digital object comprising an advertisement.

17. The method of claim 2, wherein, the target referent is a digital object comprising a web site or web page.

18. The method of claim 2, wherein, the semantic object is able to represent an intangible entity comprising an idea or a concept.

19. The method of claim 2, wherein, the semantic object is stored on the computer readable medium as an XML object using RDF or another binary storage format.

20. The method of claim 2, further comprising, creating the semantic object in response to receiving a user request or an event-based trigger.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein, the event-based trigger is detected from one or more of, a file directory and an application.

22. The method of claim 2, further comprising, creating the semantic object in response to, receiving an automatic trigger.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein, the automatic trigger is generated responsive to data-mining a knowledge resource.

24. The method of claim 3, wherein at least one of the creating of the semantic object and updating of the semantic object is triggered by one or more of the following events, comprising:

saving a document or data item;

creating a document or data item;

opening or viewing a document or data item;

modifying a document or data item;

transmitting a document or data item;

receiving a document or data item;

deleting a document or data item; and

integrating documents or data items with existing file servers, databases or search engines.

25. The method of claim 2, further comprising, embedding the semantic object in the target referent.

26. The method of claim 2,

wherein the semantic object is created in a process of matching offers and requests, an offer represented by an offer object and a request represented by a request object, and

wherein the offer object and the request object are semantic objects that include metadata defining particulars of the offer and the request.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein, wherein the offer object and the request object are created via a user interface on a computer system.

28. The method of claim 26, further comprising, determining whether there is a match between the offer object and the request object by comparing an offer object meta-tag and a request object meta-tag and/or by comparing an offer object metadata and a request object metadata.

29. The method of claim 26, further comprising, computing a similarity measure between the offer object and the request object based on the comparison between the offer object metadata and the request object metadata or the comparison between the offer object meta-tag and the request object meta-tag.

30. The method of claim 26, wherein the offer object or the request object is presented to an explicitly named recipient or to a selected recipient that satisfies a criteria.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the selected recipient is identified based on a fuzzy definition or using a matching engine.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein, the metadata is maintained by storing offer or request metadata in meta-tags in the semantic object.

33. The method of claim 31, wherein, the metadata is maintained by creating a separate semantic object and storing the offer or request metadata in the separate semantic object, and wrapping the semantic object using the separate semantic object.

34. The method of claim 31, wherein, the metadata is maintained by creating a separate semantic object and storing the offer or request metadata in the separate semantic object, and creating a reference pointer between the semantic object and the separate semantic object.

35. The method of claim 2, further comprising,

test posting the semantic object to provide an estimate of a number of matches;

and

providing for revision of the semantic object based on the test posting.

36. The method of claim 2,

wherein, the multiple meta-tags comprises, a customized set of meta-tags that are user-definable;

and

wherein the metadata is user-specifiable or machine-specifiable.

37. The method of claim 2, further comprising, automatically identifying metadata of the target referent to be associated with the metadata of the semantic object representing the target referent.

38. The method of claim 2, further comprising, exchanging information about the ontology using the semantic object.

39. The method of claim 2, wherein, the semantic object has a set of rules, comprising, a display rule of the semantic object.

40. The method of claim 39, wherein, the display rule is determined based on a display device, a particular render, and/or a purpose for viewing the semantic object.

41. The method of claim 39, wherein, the set of rules further comprises, an access rule of the semantic object.

42. The method of claim 41, wherein, the access rule specifies whether the semantic object can be modified by another user and whether the modification is subject to approval of the owner.

43. The method of claim 41, wherein, the access rule specifies a linking rule that governs whether the semantic object can be linked to by other semantic objects.

44. The method of claim 29, wherein, the set of rules further comprises, one or more of, an automation policy, a modification rule, and an update rule of the semantic object.

45. A method for creating a semantic object to represent a target referent of an object type, the semantic object being stored on a computer readable medium, the method, comprising,

creating a semantic object of a semantic object type to represent the target referent of the object type, the semantic object having multiple meta-tags that are associable with metadata;

wherein, the semantic object of the semantic object type is suitable to represent the object type of the target referent;

associating a meta-tag of the multiple meta-tags with the metadata;

wherein the meta-tag or the metadata is definable using an ontology; and

exchanging information about the ontology using the semantic object.

46. The method of claim 45, further comprising,

extracting a portion of the content from the target referent for inclusion in the semantic object;

and

wherein the extraction is part of a data mining performed on selected resources including the ontology or the Internet.

47. The method of claim 45, wherein, the semantic object is transmittable over a computer network via one or more of, email and Web protocols.

48. The method of claim 45, wherein, the semantic object is transmittable over a computer network via a peer-to-peer protocol.

49. The method of claim 45, further comprising, embedding the semantic object in the target referent.

50. A method for creating a semantic object to represent a target referent of an object type, the semantic object being stored on a computer readable medium, the method, comprising,

creating a semantic object of a semantic object type to represent the target referent of the object type, the semantic object having multiple meta-tags that are associable with metadata;

wherein, the semantic object of the semantic object type is suitable to represent the object type of the target referent;

associating a meta-tag of the multiple meta-tags with the metadata;

wherein the meta-tag or the metadata is definable using an ontology;

assigning one of multiple lifecycle stages to the semantic object; and

subsequently transitioning the semantic object from one of the multiple

lifecycle stages to another;

wherein, the semantic object has an associated display rule.

51. The method of claim 50, wherein, the display rule is determined based on a display device, a particular render, and/or a purpose for viewing the semantic object.

52. The method of claim 50, further comprising, exchanging information about the ontology using the semantic object.

53. The method of claim 50, wherein, the multiple lifecycle stages include at least one of:

a draft stage, an active stage, an inactive stage and a deleted stage.

54. The method of claim 50, wherein, the transitioning is driven a time-to-live of the semantic object after which the semantic object is deleted or inactivated.

55. The method of claim 50, wherein, the transitioning is driven by user-driven events and/or automatic rules.