IDENTIFICATION OF CONTENT IN AN ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT

• US 20130055075A1
• Filed: 10/29/2012
• Published: 02/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Ruvini, Jean-David
• Granted Patent: US 9,355,087 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/255
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/258 Heading extraction; Automatic titling; Numbering

Abstract

In some embodiments, a method includes receiving an electronic document that comprises a plurality of sections. The method includes marking the plurality of sections as a content section or a non-content section using a visual attribute of the sections that includes at least one of a width of the section, a density of the plurality of hyperlinks in the section, a size of a font of text in the section and whether a title of the electronic document overlaps with text in the section. The method also includes storing the marking other plurality of sections of the electronic document in a machine-readable medium.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving an electronic document that comprises a plurality of sections;

marking individual sections in the plurality of sections as a content section or a non-content section using one of a plurality of visual attributes of the plurality of sections;

comparing a value of a different visual attribute of two adjacent sections of the plurality of sections, wherein a first section of the two adjacent sections is marked to include content and a second section of the two adjacent sections is marked not to include content; and

changing the mark of the second section from a mark not to include content to a mark to include content in response to a determination that the value of the different visual attribute of the first section is the same as the value of the different visual attribute of the second section.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the different visual attribute comprises a background color.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the different visual attribute comprises a font size.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the result of the comparison comprises a determination that the first section and the second section share a side that does not include a visual border.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing a search of electronic documents wherein the search comprises searching the data in one or more identified content sections of the electronic document.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the search does not include searching the data in one or more identified non-content sections of the electronic document.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein marking individual sections in the plurality of sections comprises marking as a content section in response to a determination that a width of the section is greater than X percent of a width of the electronic document.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein X equals 20.

9. A machine-readable medium including instructions which when executed by a machine causes the machine to perform operations comprising:

receiving an electronic document that comprises a plurality of blocks;

marking the plurality of blocks as a content block or a non-content block using one of a plurality of visual attributes of the plurality of blocks;

comparing a value of a different visual attribute of two adjacent blocks of the plurality of blocks, a first block of the two adjacent blocks being marked to include content and a second block of the two adjacent blocks being marked not to include content; and

changing the mark of the second block from a mark not to include content to a mark to include content in response to a determination that the value of the different visual attribute of the first bock is the same as the value of the different visual attribute of the second block.

10. The machine-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the plurality of visual attributes comprises at least one of a width of the block, a density of the plurality of hyperlinks in the block, a size of a font of text in the block and whether a title of the web page is within data of the block.

11. The machine-readable medium of claim 9, wherein marking the plurality of blocks comprises marking the plurality of blocks as a content block in response to a determination that a ratio of non-hyperlink content to hyperlink content is greater than N percent.

12. The machine-readable medium of claim 11, wherein N equals 20.

13. The machine-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the different attribute comprises a background color.

14. The machine-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the different attribute comprises a font size.

15. A system comprising:

a hardware implemented module to mark a plurality of sections of an electronic document as a content section or a non-content section using one of a plurality of visual attributes of the plurality of sections;

at least one comparison component to compare a value of a different visual attribute of two adjacent sections of the plurality of sections, a first section of the two adjacent sections being marked to include content and a second section of the two adjacent sections being marked not to include content;

at least one hardware switch to change the mark of the second section from a mark not to include content to a mark to include content in response to a determination that the value of the different visual attribute of the first section is the same as the value of the different visual attribute of the second section; and

a search engine to parse the sections having content to index for a subsequent search.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the second section of the two adjacent sections being changed to having non-content is less likely to include content in comparison to the first section of the two adjacent sections based on values of the different visual attribute for the second section and the first section.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the different visual attribute comprises a background color.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the different visual attribute comprises a text color.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the different visual attribute comprises a font size.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the search engine is to not parse the sections having non-content to index for the subsequent search.

21. The system of claim 15, wherein the hardware implemented module is an identification module, and the identification module is to mark the plurality of sections as having content in response to a determination that a font size for a majority of text is less than M.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein M equals 10.