Apparatus and method for context-based highlighting of an electronic document

• US 6,820,237 B1
• Filed: 01/21/2000
• Issued: 11/16/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 01/21/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Entrust Corp.
• Original Assignee: AmikaNow! Corporation
• Inventors: McFarland, Connie P., Abu-Hakima, Suhayya
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hutton, Doug
• Application Number:
  US09/494,312
• Time in Patent Office: 1,761 Days
• Field of Search: 715/531, 715/530, 707/101, 706/10
• US Class Current: 715/210
• 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 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/284 Lexical analysis, e.g. tokenisation or collocates

Abstract

An computer-readable apparatus and method for intelligently analyzing and highlighting key words/phrases, key sentences and/or key components of an electronic document by recognizing and utilizing the context of both the electronic document (which may be any type of electronic message such as e-mail, converted voice, fax or pager message or other type of electronic document) and the user. The apparatus and method produce an electronic output highlight document from a user'"'"'s electronic input document. An application context module determine with respect to the input document the type of document it is. A user context module determines the context of the user with respect to the input document. A highlighter module determines at least a portion of the key content of the input document, up to a predetermined maximum data size, at least in part on the basis of the determinations made by the application and user context modules. Output highlight document producing means produces the output document from the key content.

Claims

1. Computer-readable apparatus comprising modules executable by said computer'"'"'s programmable processor for highlighting content of a user'"'"'s electronic input document and producing therefrom an electronic output highlight document, said apparatus comprising:

(a) an application context module configured for determining with respect to said input document the context of said document, based upon;

(i) an identification of the path through which said document arrived as determined by a source identification component of said application context module; and

, (ii) context identifiers of said document used by said application context module for determining what type of document it is;

(b) a user context module configured for determining a context of said user with respect to said input document, whereby said user context includes a relationship of the user to said document and/or its source; and

, (c) a highlighter module configured for;

i) determining the key content, comprising key words/phrases, key sentences and/or key components, of said input document, up to a predetermined maximum data size, at least in part on the basis of the determinations made by said application context module and said user context module, wherein said highlighter module applies weights and/or conditions to said content of said input document, wherein said and/or conditions derived from said determinations made by said application context module and said user context module;

(ii) producing said highlight document from said key content; and

(iii) outputting said highlight document.

2. Apparatus according to claim 1 and further comprising a document mapping module configured for producing a static document map of said input document'"'"'s content wherein said document map'"'"'s content is produced by removing a plurality of pre-determined filler words from said input document and comprises fewer words/phrases than said input document, said producing of said document map further comprising producing an associated stem map of stem words/phrases derived from words/phrases of said input document and assigning a plurality of identifiers to said content of said document map and said stem words/phrases of said stem map in a predetermined manner resulting in a preservation of information necessary to substantially reproduce the content of said input document, said document map and associated stem map together being in a form for storing on computer-readable storage for re-processing by said highlighter module at a future time, and wherein said highlighter module applies said weights and/or conditions to said content of said static document map.

3. Apparatus according to claim 2 wherein said determination of key content by said highlighter module results from mathematically calculating scores in respect of the content of said document map.

4. Apparatus according to claim 1 and further comprising a plurality of specialized application modules selectable for execution on the basis of said determinations of said application context module, each said specialized application module being configured for determining, based on said type of document, weights and/or conditions to be applied by said highlighter module to one or more parts of said document map as determined by said specialized application module.

5. Apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said highlighter module produces said highlight document on a graduated basis whereby content of said input document is culled on a as-needed-only basis in order to satisfy basis said predetermined maximum data size.

6. A method for highlighting content of a user'"'"'s electronic input document and producing therefrom a highlight document, said method comprising the steps of:

(a) determining a context of said input document, based upon;

(i) the path through which and/or source from which said document was input; and

, (ii) context identifiers of said document used for determining what type of document it is;

(b) determining a context of said user with respect to said input document whereby said user context includes a relationship of said user to said document and/or its source;

(c) determining key content, comprising key words/phrases, key sentences and/or key components, of said input document, up to a predetermined maximum data size, at least in part on the basis of said application context and user context determinations whereby weights and/or conditions derived from said application context and user context determinations are applied to said content of said input document; and

,

(d) producing said highlight document from said key content.

7. A method according to claim 6, and further comprising the step of producing a static document map of key said input document'"'"'s content whereby said document map'"'"'s content is produced by removing a plurality of predetermined filler words from said input document and comprises fewer words/phrases than said input document, said producing of said document man further comprising producing an associated stem map of stem words/phrases derived from words/phrases of said input document and assigning a plurality of identifiers to said content of said document map and said stem words/phrases of said stem map in a predetermined manner resulting in a preservation of information necessary to substantially reproduce the content of said input document, said document map and associated stem map together being in a form for re-processing at a future time, and whereby said weights and/or conditions are applied to said content of said static document map.

8. A method according to claim 7 whereby said determining of key content includes mathematically calculating scores in respect of said content of said document map.

9. A method according to claim 7 whereby said highlight document is produced on a graduated basis whereby content of said input document is culled on a as-needed-only basis in order to satisfy said predetermined maximum data size.