System for propagating enrichment between documents

• US 6,928,425 B2
• Filed: 12/05/2001
• Issued: 08/09/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/13/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: III Holdings 6, LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Shanahan, James G., Grefenstette, Gregory T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Corrielus, Jean M.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Woo, Isaac M.
• Application Number:
  US09/683,241
• Publication Number:
  US 20030061201A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,343 Days
• Field of Search: 707 1- 10, 707100-1041, 707/500.515, 7155001-516
• US Class Current: 715/209
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/38 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/956 Hierarchical
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99938 Concurrency, e.g. lock management in shared database
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99939 Privileged access

Abstract

A system provides a plurality of controls for enriching the content of a meta-document. A meta-document includes document content and personalities that describe enrichment themes. The system is adapted to automatically, with user settable constrains, determine whether to propagate enrichment between documents using an interaction history. In addition, the system is adapted to automatically determine, with user settable constraints, the form that markup is to take in the document content.

Claims

1. A method for propagating enriched document content, comprising:

(a) defining a set of entities;

(b) accessing a document with content;

(c) identifying entitles from the set of entities that exist in the content of the accessed document;

(d) recording history data of the identified entitles that exist in the content of the accessed document in an interaction history;

said recording of history data including recording in the interaction history;

a location of the document accessed;

a time when the document was accessed;

a purpose for which the document was socessed; and

a location where the entity exists in the document accessed; and

(e) enriching the identified entitles that exist in the content of the accessed document with corresponding entries in the interaction history; and

(f) repeating (b)-(e) for propagating the history data recorded in the interaction history to each subsequent document accessed;

wherein said identifying determines when multiple entries are recorded in the interaction history for a single entity that exists in the content of each document accessed by a user; and

wherein said enriching displays a summary of an identified entity when selected in the content of each document accessed by the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said recording further records as part of the history data in the interaction history one of:

(a) size of the accessed document;

(b) a document accessed that is an authority;

(c) a document accessed that cites a plurality of authorities;

(d) a symmetry metric with identical entities recorded in the history data; and

(e) number of times a document is accessed.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising defining a filtering function to enrich only selected ones of the identified entities that exist in the content of each accessed document.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein each entity identifies one of a lexicon and a part of speech.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein each document is accessed by performing one of printing, scanning, emailing, browsing, and filing.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the interaction history is recorded for a user.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the interaction history is defined using an information space that surrounds a document.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising defining the information space with a personality.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating a service using the interaction history.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the method for propagating enriched document content is a service of a personality.

11. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

specifying entity pairs with the identified entities;

performing services using the specified entity pairs to provide service results; and

enriching the content of each accessed document with the service results.

12. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

specifying entity pairs with the identified entities;

identifying third party entities;

performing services using the specified entity pairs to provide service results;

associating the service results with the third party entities; and

enriching the content of each accessed document using the associated service results.

13. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

organizing a plurality of service request in a hierarchy with a plurality of nodes;

specifying a selected service request to be performed on the content of each accessed document;

associating service requests identified in the node of the selected service request in the hierarchy and its parent nodes in the hierarchy up to a predefined depth in the hierarchy with the selected service request;

enriching the content of each accessed document using the selected service request and its associated service requests.

14. A method for propagating enriched document content, comprising:

defining a set of entities;

defining an interaction history for recording history data of entities in the set of entities;

for each of a plurality of documents accessed;

identifying entities from the set of entities that exist in each accessed document;

enriching the identified entities that exist in each accessed document with their corresponding entries in the interaction history to define an enriched document;

recording history data in the interaction history of the identified entitles in each accessed document;

wherein said enriching propagates the history data recorded in the interaction history to each of the plurality of documents as each is accessed;

wherein said identifying records in the interaction history an entity identified in a document accessed, which is not already associated with a link to markup, with a link to the document accessed; and

wherein said recording of history data records in the interaction history;

a location of the document accessed;

a time when the document was accessed;

a purpose for which the document was accessed; and

a location where the entity exists in the document accessed.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising defining a filtering function to enrich only selected ones of the identified entities that exist in the content of each accessed document.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein each entity identifies one of a lexicon and a part of speech.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein each document is accessed by performing one of printing, scanning, emailing, browsing, and filing.

18. In a system for enriching content of a document with markup, a method, comprising:

defining a set of entities;

defining an interaction history for recording history data of entities in the set of entities;

for each of a plurality of documents accessed;

identifying entities from the set of entities that exist in each accessed document;

recording markup in the interaction history of the identified entitles in each accessed document;

automatically filtering what is markup using one of an expert mode and a novice mode; and

enriching the identified entities in each accessed document with markup by automatically determining whether to link to the markup or to insert the markup in the content of each accessed document using the recorded user interaction history;

wherein said enriching propagates the history data recorded in the interaction history to each of the plurality of documents as each is accessed;

wherein the expert mode annotates only those entitles that occur in an identified corpus with a frequency less than a predetermined threshold value.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein each entity identifies one of a lexicon and a part of speech.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein each document is accessed by performing one of printing, scanning, emailing, browsing, and filing.

21. In a system for enriching content of a document with markup, a method, comprising:

defining a set of entities;

defining an interaction history for recording history data of entities in the set of entities;

for each of a plurality of documents accessed;

identifying entities from the set of entities that exist in each accessed document;

recording markup in the interaction history of the identified entitles in each accessed document;

automatically filtering what is markup using one of an expert mode and a novice mode; and

enriching the identified entities in each accessed document with markup by automatically determining whether to link to the markup or to insert the markup in the content of each accessed document using the recorded user interaction history;

wherein said enriching propagates the history data recorded in the interaction history to each of the plurality of documents as each is accessed;

wherein the novice mode annotates only those entitles that occur in an identified corpus with a frequency greater than a predetermined threshold value.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein each entity identifies one of a lexicon and a part of speech.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein each document is accessed by performing one of printing, scanning, emailing, browsing, and filing.