Method and apparatus for summarization of threads in electronic mail
First Claim
1. In a computer system operatively coupled to a network and capable of executing a communication process for sending and receiving electronic mail documents, a method comprising:
- (A) preprocessing an electronic mail document to selectively remove electronic mail features prior to document summarization;
(B) summarizing the electronic mail document and storing the results therefrom in a summary document; and
(C) identifying an ancestor document of the electronic mail document, if any;
(D) preprocessing the ancestor document to selectively remove electronic mail features;
(E) summarizing the ancestor document and adding results thereof to the summary document;
(F) repeating (C) through (E) until all ancestor documents of the electronic mail document have been summarized; and
(G) summarizing the summary document once all ancestor documents of the electronic mail document have been summarized.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention discloses a pre-processing summarization technique that makes use of knowledge specific to the electronic mail domain to pre-process an electronic mail message so that commercially-available document summarization software can subsequently generate a more useful summary from the message. The summarization technique removes extraneous headers, quoted text, forward information, and electronic signatures, leaving more useful text to be summarized. If an enclosing electronic mail thread exists, the summarization technique uses the electronic mail message'"'"'s ancestors to provide additional context for summarizing the electronic mail message. The disclosed system can be used with IBM Lotus Notes and Domino infrastructure, along with existing single-document summarizer software, to generate a summary of the discourse activity in an electronic mail thread dynamically. The summary may be further augmented to list any names, dates, and names of companies that are present in the electronic mail message being summarized.
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Citations
17 Claims
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1. In a computer system operatively coupled to a network and capable of executing a communication process for sending and receiving electronic mail documents, a method comprising:
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(A) preprocessing an electronic mail document to selectively remove electronic mail features prior to document summarization; (B) summarizing the electronic mail document and storing the results therefrom in a summary document; and (C) identifying an ancestor document of the electronic mail document, if any; (D) preprocessing the ancestor document to selectively remove electronic mail features; (E) summarizing the ancestor document and adding results thereof to the summary document; (F) repeating (C) through (E) until all ancestor documents of the electronic mail document have been summarized; and (G) summarizing the summary document once all ancestor documents of the electronic mail document have been summarized. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. In a computer system operatively coupled to a network and capable of executing a communication process for sending and receiving electronic mail documents, a method comprising:
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(A) preprocessing an electronic mail document to selectively remove electronic mail features prior to document summarization; (B) summarizing the electronic mail document and storing the results therefrom in a summary document; and (C) identifying an ancestor document of the electronic mail document, if any (D) preprocessing the ancestor document to selectively remove electronic mail features; (E) summarizing the ancestor document and adding results thereof to the summary document; (F) repeating (C) through (E) until all ancestor documents of the electronic mail document have been summarized; and (G) presenting the summary document in association with graphical representations of the electronic mail document and any ancestor document of the electronic mail document in a manner which indicates relationships among the documents.
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8. An apparatus for use with a computer system operatively coupled to a network and capable of executing a communication process for sending and receiving electronic mail documents, the apparatus comprising:
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(A) a preprocessor for preprocessing an electronic mail document to selectively remove electronic mail features prior to document summarization; (B) a document summarizer responsive to a preprocessed electronic mail document for generating a summary document; and (C) program logic for identifying any ancestor documents of the electronic mail document and causing any ancestor documents to be preprocessed by the preprocessor and summarized by the document summarizer and the results thereof added to the summary document; and (D) program logic for causing the summary document to be summarized by the document summarizer. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10)
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11. A system operatively connectable to a network and capable of executing a communication process for sending and receiving documents, said system including at least one processor and a memory having program code stored thereon, said program code comprising:
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(A) program code for summarizing a document existing at a current level of a hierarchical organization of documents; (B) program code for storing the results of the summarization process of (A) in a separate summary document, said summary document being neither the document summarized and existing at the current level nor a document existing at a level of the hierarchical organization above the current level; (C) program code for identifying another document that exists at a level of the hierarchical organization above the current level; (D) program code for designating the level of the hierarchical organization above the current level as the current level of the hierarchical organization; (E) program code for repeating (A) through (D) until no document exists at any level of the hierarchical organization above the current level. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A computer program product for use with a computer system operatively coupled to a network and capable of executing a communication process for sending and receiving electronic mail documents, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium having embodied therein program code comprising:
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(A) program code for summarizing a document existing at a current level of a hierarchical organization of documents; (B) program code for storing the results of the summarization process of (A) in a separate summary document, said summary document being neither the document summarized and existing at the current level nor a document existing at a level of the hierarchical organization above the current level; (C) program code for identifying another document that exists at a level of the hierarchical organization above the current level; (D) program code for designating the level of the hierarchical organization above the current level as the current level of the hierarchical organization; (E) program code for repeating (A) through (D) until no document exists at any level of the hierarchical organization above the current level.
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17. A system operatively coupled to a network and capable of executing a communication process for sending and receiving electronic mail documents, comprising:
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(A) means for summarizing a document existing at a current level of a hierarchical organization of documents; (B) means for storing the results of the summarization process of (A) in a separate summary document, said summary document being neither the document summarized and existing at the current level nor a document existing at a level of the hierarchical organization above the current level; (C) means for identifying another document that exists at a level of the hierarchical organization above the current level; (D) means for designating the level of the hierarchical organization above the current level as the current level of the hierarchical organization; (E) means for repeating (A) through (D) until no document exists at any level of the hierarchical organization above the current level.
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Specification