Method and apparatus for displaying references to a user's document browsing history within the context of a new document

• US 6,370,551 B1
• Filed: 04/14/1998
• Issued: 04/09/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 04/14/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation), Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Schilit, William Noah, Golovchinsky, Gene, Price, Morgan N.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen S.
• Application Number:
  US09/059,204
• Time in Patent Office: 1,456 Days
• Field of Search: 707/501, 707/10, 707/2, 707/512, 707/3, 707/530
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/94 Hypermedia Hyperlinking G06F40/134

Abstract

An electronic document reader supplements a new document with selectable links that reference portions of previously read documents that have content similar to a passage of the new document. The portions of the previously read documents may be previously identified and stored in a memory to expedite processing. The portions of previously read documents are identified by annotations or explicitly by a user. The identified portions are indexed, clustered and are used as proxies for topics. This invention segments a new document into passages and matches the passages to the stored topics based on the similarity of the content. The topics that exceed a content similarity threshold cause corresponding selectable links to be displayed in the display of the new document near the corresponding passage. The user of this invention can then choose to follow the selectable link to learn more about the topic of the corresponding segment. In this manner, this invention aids a reader in connecting material in the new document with material in previously read documents.

Claims

1. A method for providing a selectable link in a display of a first document to at least one portion of at least one second document, the method comprising:

segmenting the first document into a plurality of passages;

identifying, based on a content similarity analysis of the contents of the plurality of passages and a content of each of the at least one portion, at least one portion that has been annotated in the at least one second document having content similar to the content of at least one of the plurality of passages, said at least one portion of the at least one second document having been previously read and annotated by a user; and

displaying in the first document, for each such portion, a visually associated selectable link to the second document containing that identified portion.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining if a selectable link is selected; and

displaying at least one portion of the second document corresponding to the selected link.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

segmenting each at least one second document into a plurality of portions; and

storing the plurality of portions into a memory.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

determining at least one topic from the plurality of portions; and

determining which of the plurality of portions are related to each at least one topic, wherein the identified at least one portion is identified based further on the topic related to the identified at least one portion being related to at least one predetermined topic.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the at least one predetermined topic is selected by the user.

6. The method of claim 3, further comprising determining which of the plurality of portions are annotated.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein determining annotated portions comprises analyzing the content of each of the plurality of portions.

8. The method of claim 3, farther comprising forming the plurality of portions into a plurality of clusters.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein forming the plurality of clusters comprises grouping the plurality of portions using similarity measures.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the similarity measures include a similarity of the plurality of portions to each other.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the similarity measures include a similarity of the plurality of portions to at least one predetermined topic.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein identifying the at least one portion as having content similar to at least one of the plurality of passages comprises determining which passages are related to which clusters.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of determining which passages are related to which clusters comprise:

generating a set of cluster attributes for each cluster, that represent the plurality of portions within each corresponding cluster;

identifying a set of cluster attributes as being related to at least one of the plurality of passages; and

identifying a portion within the identified cluster as being most closely related to the at least one of the plurality of passages.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the selectable link comprises displaying each link in a margin of the first document proximate to the determined passage that is similar to an identified portion.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the selectable link comprises displaying the passage as the selectable link to the corresponding at least one portion.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the selectable link comprises displaying each link in a predetermined area of the display of the first document.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one second document is a previously viewed document.

18. An apparatus that provides, in a display of a first document, selectable links to at least one portion of at least one second document, the apparatus comprising:

a processing system, comprising;

a segmenting system that segments the first document into a plurality of passages;

an identifying system that, based on a content similarity analysis of the contents of the plurality of passages and a content of each of the at least one portion, identifies at least one of a plurality of portions that has been annotated in the at least one second document that is similar in content to the content of at least one passage of the first document, said at least one portion of the at least one second document having been previously read and annotated by a user; and

a display that displays the first document and at least one visually associated selectable link, each selectable link linking a passage of the first document to a corresponding one of the at least one second document having at least one portion that is similar in content to that segment.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the processing system further comprises a selection device for selecting at least one of the at least one selectable link, the display displaying the corresponding at least one portion of the at least one second document based on the selected selectable link.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the segmenting system segments each at least one second document to generate the plurality of portions.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, further comprising:

a first memory that stores the at least one second document; and

a second memory that stores the plurality of portions.

22. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the identifying system identifies the plurality of portions based on their relatedness to at least one topic.

23. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the identifying system identifies the plurality of portions based on annotations to the at least one of second document.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the identifying system identifies the plurality of portions based on the content of the plurality of portions.

25. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the processing system further comprises a clustering system that clusters the plurality of portions.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the clustering system clusters the plurality of portions based on a similarity of their contents.

27. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the clustering system clusters the plurality of portions based on their similarity to each other.

28. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the clustering system clusters the plurality of portions based on their similarity to at least one topic.

29. The apparatus of claim 25, where the clustering system generates a set of cluster attributes for each cluster that represents the plurality of portions within each corresponding cluster, where the identifying system identifies the at least one of the plurality of portions by identifying at least one cluster having a set of cluster attributes that are similar to at least one passage of the first document and identifying the at least one of the plurality of portions from the portions in the identified cluster.

30. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the identifying system identifies each similar portion based on a similarity of each passage to a cluster of the at least one portion.

31. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the display displays the at least one selectable link in a margin of the first document.

32. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the display displays the at least one selectable link as the display of the passage that corresponds to the at least one portion.

33. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the display displays the at least one selectable link in a predetermined area of the display of the first document.

34. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the at least one second document is a previously viewed document.