System and method for augmenting content in electronic documents with links to contextually relevant information

• US 7,640,240 B2
• Filed: 09/26/2006
• Issued: 12/29/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Quotient Technology Inc.
• Original Assignee: Quotient Technology Inc.
• Inventors: Walsh, Michael, Boal, Steven R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong; Don
• Assistant Examiner(s): DANG, THANH HA T
• Application Number:
  US11/527,856
• Publication Number:
  US 20070073690A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,190 Days
• Field of Search: 707/4, 707/10, 707/104.1, 707/3, 707/5, 707/6, 707/7, 705/14, 705/500, 283/51
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0207 Discounts or incentives, e.g. coupons or rebates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0239 Online discounts or incentives
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting

Abstract

An electronic document and associated system, methods and apparatus is described. The electronic document is loaded in a user device configured to communicate with an external device that generates instructions for augmenting content contained in the electronic document with links to contextually relevant information. The content can be augmented with one or more user interface elements, and the augmented content can be displayed with one or more attributes which can be selected by a document author. The document author can mark or otherwise designate one or more portions of the electronic document to be excluded from the augmenting process.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a portion of content of an electronic document;

analyzing the portion of the content to identify one or more predetermined words in the portion;

associating the one or more predetermined words with contextually relevant information including a coupon information;

augmenting the portion with the coupon information including linking the portion to one or more coupons associated with the coupon information by adding a script to the portion, wherein executing the script in a browser causes the browser to generate and display a user interface element in association with each of the one or more predetermined words or the content, receive user input selecting the user interface element with a particular one of the words, select a coupon offer for the one or more coupons that is contextually relevant to the selected particular one of the words, display the coupon offer for the one or more coupons in a window over the portion of content, and download the one or more coupons to the browser;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computers.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving one or more keywords, the one or more keywords being associated with the coupon information.

3. The method of claim 2, where associating the one or more predetermined words includes:

comparing the one or more predetermined words with the one or more keywords;

where linking the portion to one or more coupons includes linking the portion to a particular one of the coupons that is associated with a keyword matching the at least one predetermined word.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing a search query in the contextually relevant information.

5. The method of claim 4, where linking the portion includes:

linking at least one predetermined word to one of the one or more coupons if the search query indicates a predetermined relationship between the at least one predetermined word and the coupon.

6. The method of claim 5, where linking at least one predetermined word to a particular one of the coupons includes displaying the user interface element as a link linking the at least one predetermined word to the coupon, the link being displayed with the coupon.

7. A method of claim 1, wherein receiving a portion of content comprises:

selecting content contained in an electronic document as the portion of content.

8. The method of claim 7, where adding the script includes generating a display script configured to display link information associated with the at least one coupon, and a marking script configured to augment the selected content with the at least one coupon.

9. The method of claim 7, where associating the selected content with contextually relevant information includes:

parsing the selected content;

identifying one or more elements from the parsed content;

comparing the one or more identified elements with a predetermined number of keywords; and

associating the selected content with contextually relevant information if at least one element matches a keyword.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one element includes a predetermined word.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one element includes an image that contains a text portion having one or more predetermined words;

and

wherein comparing the one or more identified elements includes comparing the one or more predetermined words in the text portion with a predetermined number of keywords.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising halting the content augmentation if at least one predetermined word matches a forbidden word.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one element includes an image;

and

wherein comparing the one or more identified elements includes comparing the image with images associated with the keywords.

14. The method of claim 1, where linking the one or more predetermined words to one or more coupons associated with the coupon information includes:

providing the user interface element as a link that links the one or more unique words to the one or more coupons associated with the coupon information; and

activating the link in response to the user input to allow the one or more coupons to be accessible.

15. The method of claim 14, where activating the link in response to the user input includes displaying the one or more coupons in the window with the portion of content.

16. A machine-readable storage device storing instructions which when executed cause one or more processors to perform:

receiving a portion of content of an electronic document;

analyzing the portion of the content to identify one or more predetermined words in the portion;

associating the one or more predetermined words with contextually relevant information including a coupon information;

augmenting the portion with the coupon information including linking the portion to one or more coupons associated with the coupon information by adding a script to the portion, wherein executing the script in a browser causes the browser to generate and display a user interface element in association with each of the one or more predetermined words of the content, receive user input selecting the user interface element with a particular one of the words, select a coupon offer for the one or more coupons that is contextually relevant to the selected particular one of the words, display the coupon offer for the one or more coupons in a window over the portion of content, and download the one or more coupons to the browser;

wherein stored instructions are executed by one or more computers.

17. The machine-readable storage device of claim 16, further comprising instructions which when executed cause receiving one or more keywords, the one or more keywords being associated with the coupon information, and associating the one or more predetermined words by comparing the one or more predetermined words with the one or more keywords;

where linking the portion to one or more coupons includes linking the portion to a particular one of he coupons that is associated with a keyword matching the at least one predetermined word.

18. The machine-readable storage device of claim 16, further comprising instructions which when executed cause adding the script by generating a display script configured to display link information associated with the at least one coupon, and a marking script configured to augment the selected content with the at least one coupon.

19. The machine-readable storage device of claim 16, wherein at least one element includes an image that contains a text portion having one or more predetermined words;

and further comprising instructions which when executed cause comparing the one or more identified elements by comparing the one or more predetermined words in the text portion with a predetermined number of keywords.

20. The machine-readable storage device of claim 19, further comprising instructions which when executed cause halting the content augmentation if at least one predetermined word matches a forbidden word.