System and method for automatically pre-setting form field values

• US 6,854,085 B1
• Filed: 07/15/1999
• Issued: 02/08/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 07/15/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Netscape Communications Corporation (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Morse, Stephen P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): HUYNH, CONG LAC T
• Application Number:
  US09/354,018
• Time in Patent Office: 2,035 Days
• Field of Search: 715/507, 715/508, 715/501.1, 707/507, 707/501.1, 705/72, 705/75, 705/76, 705/26, 705/27, 709/201, 709/217, 709/218
• US Class Current: 715/236
• 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 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging

Abstract

A system and method for filling in a field of a form includes a network access facility and a mapping facility. Specifically, the network access facility accesses a network in order to receive the form, and the mapping facility maps the field of the form to a predetermined value. For example, the network may be the Internet or the World Wide Web.

Claims

1. A system for automatically pre-setting form field values, comprising:

a network access facility configured to access a network site to receive a form including at least one field; and

a mapping facility configured to map said field to a pre-determined value, said mapping facility comprising;

an application specific field-to-schema mapping facility configured to map said at least one field to an application specific schema for said at least one field when said application-specific schema is stored within said application specific field-to-schema mapping facility;

a generic field-to-schema mapping facility configured to map said at least one field to a generic schema for said at least one field when said application-specific schema is not stored within said application specific field-to-schema mapping facility and said generic schema is stored within said generic field-to-schema mapping facility; and

a schema-to-value mapping facility configured to map said application-specific schema to a value when said application-specific schema is stored within said application specific field-to-schema mapping facility, and to map said generic schema to said value when said application-specific schema is not stored within said application specific field-to-schema mapping facility and said generic schema is stored within said generic field-to-schema mapping facility.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein said network access facility is an Internet content browser client.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein said network site is a world wide web site and said form is a hyper-text mark-up language form.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein said network access facility is an Internet content browser client plug-in working in conjunction with an Internet content browser client.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein said application specific field-to-schema mapping facility is a uniform resource locator specific field-to-schema mapping facility, and said application specific schema is a uniform resource locator schema.

6. A method for facilitating automatic pre-setting of form field values, comprising the steps of:

accessing a network site to receive a form including at least one field;

receiving the form from said network site, said form including at least one field to be filled in; and

mapping said at least one field to a pre-determined value, said step of mapping said at least one field to said predetermined value comprising the substeps of;

mapping said at least one field to an application specific schema when said application specific schema is stored within a mapping facility;

mapping said at least one field to a generic schema when said application specific schema is not stored within said mapping facility and said generic schema is stored within said mapping facility;

mapping said application specific schema to a value when said application specific schema is stored within said mapping facility; and

mapping said generic schema to said value when said application specific schema is not stored within said mapping facility and said generic schema is stored within said mapping facility.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein said network site is a world wide web site and said form is a hyper-text mark-up language form.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein said application specific schema is a uniform resource locator schema.