METHOD FOR EXTRACTING REFERENTIAL KEYS FROM A DOCUMENT

• US 20100316301A1
• Filed: 07/12/2010
• Published: 12/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: Hadley, Brent L., Chew, Susan C., Eames, Patrick J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,060,511 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/229
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/35 Clustering; Classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/355 Class or cluster creation or modification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention provide methods, computer-readable media, and systems for extracting referential keys from a document. A document is parsed to identify at least one key, the key being identified from at least one contextual indication. The key is classified according to a key type, the key type being identified from the contextual indication. The key is extracted and then stored in a location in a structured shell with the location corresponding to the key type. As a result, the key can be found by a search seeking one of the key and the key-type allowing a searcher to identify the document from which the key was extracted.

Claims

1-63. -63. (canceled)

64. A method of information searching in a document image derived from a scanner, the method comprising:

creating a referential key corresponding to a first contextual indicator present in the document image;

parsing successive portions of the document image to locate the first contextual indicator, wherein the first contextual indicator indicates a found referential key within the document image;

identifying at least one portion of the document image that includes the found referential key;

determining that the located first contextual indicator is not determinative of a key type of the found referential key, without knowledge of text contained within the found referential key;

parsing the found referential key to locate a second contextual indicator;

determining if a combination of the located first contextual indicator and the located second contextual indicator is determinative of the key type of the found referential key; and

extracting characters from the found referential key.

65. The method of claim 64, wherein creating a referential key further comprises creating the key according to a predetermined key type.

66. The method of claim 65, wherein the key type comprises at least one of a title, a header, a footer, a document type, a document identifier, a subject identifier, a section identifier, a chapter identifier and a page number.

67. The method of claim 64, wherein the contextual indicator comprises at least one of a placement indicator, a format indicator and a font indicator.

68. The method of claim 67, wherein the format indicator comprises a character pattern that includes at least one of a pattern of digits and a pattern of separators.

69. The method of claim 67, wherein the font indicator comprises at least one of a typeface, a boldface, an underlined text portion and a font size.

70. The method of claim 67, wherein the placement indicator includes a page position.

71. The method of claim 64, wherein extracting characters from the found referential key comprises extracting characters using an optical character recognition routine to scan the found referential key after at least one of the located first indicator, and the combination of the located first indicator and the located second indicator, is determined to be determinative of the key type.

72. The method of claim 64 further comprising storing the key type of the found referential key, the key location of the found referential key, and the extracted characters of the found referential key in a structured format according to the key type, the extracted characters, and the key location.

73. The method of claim 72, wherein storing in a structured format comprises storing in a format that allows navigation to, from, and within the document image.

74. The method of claim 72, wherein storing in a structured formal comprises storing in an extensible markup language (XML) document.

75. The method of claim 64, wherein creating a referential key corresponding to a first contextual indicator comprises creating the referential key corresponding to a contextual indicator derived from knowledge including at least one of a general knowledge, a tribal knowledge, and a specific document format rule.