Method and system for organizing documents based upon annotations in context

• US 6,279,014 B1
• Filed: 09/15/1997
• Issued: 08/21/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 09/15/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation), Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Golovchinsky, Gene, Wilcox, Lynn D., Schilit, William Noah, Price, Morgan N.
• Primary Examiner(s): Feild, Joseph H.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Bourque, Robert D
• Application Number:
  US08/929,427
• Time in Patent Office: 1,436 Days
• Field of Search: 707/512, 707/513, 707/514, 707/515, 707/516, 707/517, 707/518, 707/519, 707/520, 707/541, 395/800, 395/801, 395/802, 395/141, 395/142, 395/143
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/117 Tagging; Marking up details of markup languages G06F40/143; Designating a block; Setting of attributes style sheets, e.g. eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation [XSLT], G06F40/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/258 Heading extraction; Automatic titling; Numbering

Abstract

A document organizing system extracts annotations made to a document along with the context surrounding each annotation and organizes the annotations based upon the annotation attributes and/or context. The annotations are created by grouping marks based upon their proximity in time and space. The document is segmented to determine a minimum context associated with each annotation. A list of the annotations sorted by the attributes are then displayed to the user. The context provided by the invention for each annotation allows the user to fully understand the annotation.

Claims

1. A method for determining the context of annotations from at least one document containing the annotations, comprising:

identifying at least one annotation from the at least one document; and

determining, based on the at least one annotation, a context portion for each at least one annotation from a corresponding one of the at least one document.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising ordering the at least one annotation based on the at least one attribute;

and

displaying an ordered list of the at least one annotation along with the corresponding context.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of extracting at least one annotation comprises:

grouping marks by time and space into at least one collection, wherein each collection forms an annotation;

segmenting the at least one document into a plurality of segments based on the at least one annotation;

determining a minimum context portion for each annotation, from the segments; and

determining the context portion based on the segments surrounding the minimum context.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein, when one of the at least one annotation is a margin note, the step of extracting the at least one annotation comprises determining the context portion by including all segments vertically adjacent to the margin note.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein, when one of the at least one annotation is an underline callout, the step of extracting the at least one annotation comprises determining the minimum context portion based on an underlined portion of the corresponding document.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein, when the at least one annotation is a circle callout, the step of extracting the at least one annotation comprises determining the minimum context from a circled portion of the corresponding document.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of assigning at least one attribute comprises assigning at least one user-defined attribute to each at least one annotation.

8. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of assigning at least one attribute comprises assigning at least one document-based attribute to each at least one annotation.

9. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of assigning at least one attribute comprises deriving at least one attribute for each at least one annotation from the context portion for that annotation.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of deriving the at least one attribute comprises identifying a type of the context portion for that annotation and assigning at least one attribute based on the identified type.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of deriving the at least one an attribute comprises identifying a content of the context portion for that annotation and assigning at least one attribute based on the identified content.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of assigning at least one attribute comprises identifying a mark on the document by the user and assigning at least one attribute corresponding to the identified mark.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of assigning at least one attribute comprises determining a date and/or a time of each of at least one annotation and assigning the corresponding creation date and/or time as an attribute of the annotation.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of assigning at least one attribute comprises determining a page number of each at least one annotation and assigning the corresponding page number as an attribute of the annotation.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of assigning at least one attribute comprises:

identifying for an annotation, a user-generated mark on the document associated with that annotation; and

assigning at least one attribute to that annotation based on the identified mark.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising filtering the annotations based on the assigned attribute.

31. The method of claim 1, further comprising assigning at least one attribute to each at least one annotation.

17. An apparatus for determining the context of annotations from at least one document containing the annotations, the apparatus comprising:

a memory that stores the at least one document;

a processor that identifies at least one annotation and a context portion based on the at least one annotation of the at least one document corresponding to each annotation; and

a display that displays the at least one annotation and the at least one corresponding context portion.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein:

the processor extracts the at least one annotation grouping at least one user generated mark on the at least one document based on time of at least one mark and a location within the document of the at least one mark into at least one collection, wherein each collection forms a single annotation, the processor determines a minimum context portion of the corresponding document for each annotation; and

determines the context for each annotation based on the annotation and the minimum context.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein when one of the at least one annotation comprises a margin note, the processor extracts that annotation by including all segments vertically adjacent to the margin note in the corresponding document.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein, when one of the at least one annotation comprises an underline callout, the processor extracts that annotation by determining the minimum context from an underlined portion of the corresponding document.

21. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein, when one of the at least one annotation comprises a circle callout, the processor extracts that annotation determines the context portion based on a circled portion of the corresponding document.

22. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein, for each at least one annotation, the processor assigns the at least one attribute to that annotation based on at least one document-based attribute.

23. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein, for each at least one annotation, the processor assigns the at least one attribute to that annotation based on at least one attribute derived from the context portion corresponding to that annotation.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein, for each at least one annotation, the processor derives the at least one attribute from the context portion based on a type of the context portion corresponding to that annotation.

25. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein, for each at least one annotation, the processor derives the at least one attribute from the context portion based on the content of the context portion corresponding to that annotation.

26. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein when one of the at least one annotation is a mark annotation the processor assigns the at least one attribute based upon that mark annotation.

27. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein, for each at least one annotation, the at least one attribute is at least one of a creation date and a creation time of that annotation.

28. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein, for each at least one annotation, the at least one attribute is the page number of that annotation.

29. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein, for each at least one annotation, the processor assigns the at least one attribute to that annotation based on a user-generated mark on the corresponding document associated with that annotation.

30. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the processor filters the annotations using the at least one assigned attribute.

32. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein:

the processor assigns at least one attribute to each extracted annotation and orders the at least one annotation based on the at least one assigned attribute; and

the display displays the at least one annotation in a list ordered in accordance with the attributes.

33. A method of accepting annotations to at least one document and determining the context of the annotations, comprising:

accepting at least one annotation to the document from a user interface;

storing the at least one annotation;

determining a context based on the at least one annotation for each annotation from a corresponding one of the at least one document;

storing the context for each annotation;

retrieving the at least one annotation and corresponding context; and

displaying the retrieved at least one annotation and its corresponding context.

34. An apparatus for accepting annotations to at least one document and for determining the context of the annotations, comprising:

a user interface that accepts annotations to at least one document;

a context identifier responsive to the annotations to identify the contexts of the annotations in the corresponding at least one document;

a storage device that stores the annotations and the corresponding identified contexts;

a processor that retrieves at least one of the stored annotations along with the corresponding context for each retrieved annotation; and

a display that displays each retrieved annotation and its context.