Partially customized document generation

• US 9,122,667 B2
• Filed: 01/20/2003
• Issued: 09/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/21/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH (The Woodbridge Co. Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Business Integrity Ltd. (The Woodbridge Co. Ltd.)
• Inventors: Vasey, Philip Edgar
• Primary Examiner(s): Queler, Adam M
• Application Number:
  US10/347,785
• Publication Number:
  US 20030140053A1
• Time in Patent Office: 4,607 Days
• Field of Search: 715/530, 715/513, 715/760, 715/271, 715/272, 715/209
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• 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 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates

Abstract

A document generation system for generating a customized document using predetermined elements of document content selected by rules operating on input information, is configured to generate a partially customized document by evaluating some of the rules to select some of the predetermined elements, and associating other of the rules and corresponding predetermined elements with the partially customized document for later use in generating a further customized document.

Claims

1. A document generation program recorded on a non-transitory computer-readable data storage medium comprising:

logic configured to be utilized by a first computer to process a document template which includes elements of content which are non-conditional, elements of content which are conditional, and rules for the use of the elements of conditional content, including;

logic configured to use input information from an information capture document to evaluate ones of the rules which can be evaluated, where not all of the rules can be evaluated; and

logic configured to generate a partially customized document including the elements of non-conditional content, elements of conditional content selected based on the evaluated rules, unevaluated rules, and elements of conditional content corresponding to the unevaluated rules; and

logic configured to be utilized by a second computer to generate a fully customized document without reference to the document template from the partially customized document including the elements of non-conditional content and elements of conditional content selected based on the evaluated rules by using further input information to evaluate the unevaluated rules to select at least some of the elements of conditional content from the partially customized document.

2. The document generation program according to claim 1, wherein the unevaluated rules are represented in the partially customized document as mark-up of the corresponding elements.

3. The document generation program according to claim 1, wherein the partially customized document is generated in response to input information which is not sufficient to evaluate the unevaluated rules.

4. The document generation program according to claim 1, wherein the partially customized document is generated in response to input information which is sufficient to evaluate at least some of the unevaluated rules, and which indicates that at least one of the unevaluated rules should not be evaluated.

5. A document generation system comprising:

one or more first computers which are configured to;

access a document template comprising predetermined elements of content for possible use when generating a customized document;

access data associated with the document template, the data representing first and second rules for making, respectively, first and second determinations as to the use to be made of the predetermined elements of content when generating a customized document, the first and second determinations each requiring further information to be received;

receive information enabling at least the first determination to be made;

make the first determination on the basis of the received information;

generate a partially customized document in accordance with the outcome of the first determination such that the partially customized document includes an element of conditional content selected based on evaluation of the first rule; and

associate, with the generated partially customized document, data representing the second rule; and

one or more second computers which are configured to;

receive the partially customized document and associated data representing the second rule;

receive information enabling at least the second determination to be made; and

make the second determination without reference to the document template on the basis of the received information and the data representing the second rule associated with the partially customized document.

6. The system according to claim 5, wherein the predetermined elements of content enable customized documents to be generated, from the document template, for each possible combination of outcomes of both the first and second determinations.

7. The system according to claim 5, wherein the first and second rules are represented in the document template in the form of mark-up of the predetermined elements of content.

8. The system according to claim 5, wherein the partially customized document comprises one or more of the predetermined elements of content selected to enable further customized documents to be generated, from the partially customized document, for each possible outcome of the second determination.

9. The system according to claim 8, wherein the second rule is represented in the partially customized document in the form of mark-up of the selected one or more elements of content.

10. The system according to claim 5, wherein the received information comprises at least part of the information required to enable the second determination to be made and an indication that the second determination should not be made.

11. The system according to claim 5, wherein the one or more computers generate a request to receive information enabling at least the second determination to be made, the received information being validly received in response to the request.

12. The system according to claim 11, wherein the generated request is a user request presented to a user in the form of a user interface.

13. The system according to claim 11, wherein the generated request is a database query.