Automated creation and delivery of database content

• US 7,130,861 B2
• Filed: 08/15/2002
• Issued: 10/31/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 08/16/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Sentius International, LLC (Sentius Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sentius International, LLC (Sentius Corporation)
• Inventors: Bookman, Marc, Kurtz, David, Patwardhan, Niket
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong, Leslie
• Application Number:
  US10/218,738
• Publication Number:
  US 20030050929A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,538 Days
• Field of Search: 707/3, 707/6, 707/10, 707/102, 707/104.1, 704/9, 704/10, 715/709
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/30 of unstructured textual data document management systems G06F16/93
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9024 Graphs; Linked lists G06F16/9027 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/904 Browsing; Visualisation therefor for navigating the web G06F16/954; browsing optimisation for the web G06F16/957
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/242 Dictionaries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/247 Thesauruses; Synonyms
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

A method and apparatus automatically build a database by automatically assigning links to an expert, pushing content to an expert, providing expert annotation, and linking the content to an annotation database. A term is selected by applying rules, such as, the term not previously existing in the database, an unusually high frequency of the term, the term is an article or the term is an unusual part of speech. An advertiser can sponsor the term, for example, by having a banner ad automatically pop-up on a keyword search. Content windows can be attached to the term, the content window containing information such as definitions, related products or services, sponsorship information, information from content syndicators, translations and reference works.

Claims

1. A method for generating an annotated database and syndicating content from that database comprising:

selecting a term from a corpus of documents according to rules;

storing said term into a terms database;

identifying a knowledgeable expert familiar with said term;

sending said selected term to said expert for providing an annotation to said term;

linking the annotation with said term in said database;

syndicating data objects representing said database to remote servers; and

using said data objects to execute rules for linking to the annotation from said database when said term appears in text, without requiring a connection to said database.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

crawling said corpus of documents.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

parsing all documents matching selected criteria in said corpus.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein said rules comprise any of:

said term not previously existing in said database, unusually high frequency of said term, said term is an article, said term is an unusual part of speech.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said rules comprise:

ranking an order chains of said terms by said terms normalized frequency, where said normalized frequency is a frequency of said chain divided by a frequency of said term.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said normalized frequency is greater than or equal to a threshold value.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said annotated term is sponsored by an advertiser automatically when a page containing said annotated term is viewed.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein said annotated term is pre-selected by providing said annotated term in said terms database.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein said annotated term links to a content window, said content window containing information related to said term.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said annotation comprises:

definitions, related products or services, sponsorship information, information from content syndicators, translations and reference works, document archives, and other repositories of information said information accessible by selecting said term within said corpus of documents.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

filtering terms from said corpus of documents by removing commonly used terms.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

analyzing said term with a term editor utility interface, said interface capable of expanding or reducing extensions of a context said term is contained in.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

syndicating to remote servers lexical data objects containing a representation of content in the term database.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein said lexical data object contains information:

terms, term ID, dictionary, annotation content, meta data.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

a single lexical object is used by all processing engines on a single server or stored on a single server and accessed by processing engines on multiple servers.

16. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

processing engine on a remote server utilizing said data object to match terms in unstructured text to terms in said database.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising:

a connection to the said database is not required at the time processing takes place.

18. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

syndicating to remote servers template data objects containing linking rules specified in a template database.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein said template data object contains information:

template names, template IDs, dictionary names, dictionary IDs, metadata criteria, filter names, tag definitions, run time mode selections, and additions to the page.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

a single template object is used by all processing engines on a single server or stored on a single server and accessed by processing engines on multiple servers.

21. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

processing engine on a remote server utilizing said template data object to determine and implement linking rules.

22. The method of claim 21 further comprising:

a connection to said template database is not required at the time processing takes place.

23. A system for generating an annotated database and syndicating content from that database comprising:

a processor;

means for selecting a term from a corpus of documents according to rules;

a terms database for storing said term;

means for identifying a knowledgeable expert familiar with said term;

means for sending said selected term to said expert for providing an annotation to said term;

means for linking the annotation with said term in said database; and

means for syndicating data objects representing said database to remote servers;

wherein said data objects are used to execute rules for linking to the annotation from said database when said term appears in text, without requiring a connection to said database.

24. The system of claim 23, further comprising:

means for crawling said corpus of documents.

25. The system of claim 23, further comprising:

means for parsing all documents matching selected criteria in said corpus.

26. The system of claim 23 wherein said rules comprise any of:

said term not previously existing in said database, unusually high frequency of said term, said term is an article, said term is an unusual part of speech.

27. The system of claim 23, wherein said rules comprise:

means for ranking an order chains of said terms by said terms normalized frequency, where said normalized frequency is a frequency of said chain divided by a frequency of said term.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein said normalized frequency is greater than or equal to a threshold value.

29. The system of claim 23, wherein said annotated term is sponsored by an advertiser automatically when a page containing said annotated term is viewed.

30. The system of claim 29, wherein said annotated term is pre-selected by providing said annotated term in said terms database.

31. The system of claim 23 wherein said annotated term links to a content window, said content window containing information related to said term.

32. The system of claim 31, wherein said annotation comprises:

definitions, related products or services, sponsorship information, information from content syndicators, translations and reference works, document archives, and other repositories of information said information accessible by selecting said term within said corpus of documents.

33. The system of claim 23 further comprising:

means for filtering terms from said corpus of documents by removing commonly used terms.

34. The system of claim 23 further comprising:

means for analyzing said term with a term editor utility interface, said interface capable of expanding or reducing extensions of a context said term is contained in.

35. The system of claim 23 further comprising:

means for syndicating to remote servers lexical data objects containing a representation of content in the term database.

36. The system of claim 35, wherein said lexical data object contains information:

terms, term ID, dictionary, annotation content, meta data.

37. The system of claim 35, wherein a single lexical object is used by all processing engines on a single server or stored on a single server and accessed by processing engines on multiple servers.

38. The system of claim 23 further comprising:

means for processing engine on a remote server utilizing said data object to match terms in unstructured text to terms in said database.

39. The system of claim 38 further comprising:

a connection to the said database is not required at the time processing takes place.

40. The system of claim 23 further comprising:

means for syndicating to remote servers template data objects containing linking rules specified in a template database.

41. The system of claim 40, wherein said template data object contains information:

template names, template IDs, dictionary names, dictionary IDs, metadata criteria, filter names, tag definitions, run time mode selections, and additions to the page.

42. The system of claim 40, further comprising:

a single template object is used by all processing engines on a single server or stored on a single server and accessed by processing engines on multiple servers.

43. The system of claim 23 further comprising:

processing engine on a remote server utilizing said template data object to determine and implement linking rules.

44. The system of claim 43 further comprising:

a connection to said template database is not required at the time processing takes place.