Associating one or more terms in a message trail with a task entry

• US 9,424,247 B1
• Filed: 12/31/2013
• Issued: 08/23/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Tomkins, Andrew, Ravikumar, Shanmugasundaram, Agarwal, Shalini, Pang, Bo, Li, Mark Yinan
• Primary Examiner(s): Hang, Vu B
• Application Number:
  US14/145,247
• Time in Patent Office: 966 Days
• Field of Search: 704/4, 704/9, 704/2, 704/3, 704/5, 704/6, 704/7
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/30 of unstructured textual data document management systems G06F16/93
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/313 Selection or weighting of terms for indexing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3334 Selection or weighting of terms from queries, including natural language queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/253 Grammatical analysis; Style critique
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/268 Morphological analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/279 Recognition of textual entities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/55 Rule-based translation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/58 Use of machine translation, e.g. for multi-lingual retrieval, for server-side translation for client devices or for real-time translation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1093 Calendar-based scheduling for persons or groups

Abstract

Methods and apparatus related to determining an association between a message trail and a task entry of a user and associating an n-gram with the task entry, wherein the n-gram is based on one or more messages of the message trail. A similarity score between the n-gram and one or more aspects of the associated task entry may be determined. The similarity score may be utilized, for example, to determine when to associate the n-gram with the task entry and/or how to utilize the associated n-gram with the task entry.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

identifying a task entry of a user utilizing one or more processors, wherein the task entry includes one or more information fields;

identifying, utilizing one or more of the processors, one or more messages sent or received by the user, wherein each of the messages includes one or more terms;

identifying, utilizing one or more of the processors, an association between the task entry and the one or more messages;

identifying, utilizing one or more of the processors, that a new message is related to the one or more messages, wherein the new message is sent or received by the user after creation of the task entry of the user, and wherein the new message includes one or more new message terms;

determining, utilizing one or more of the processors, an n-gram based on the one or more new message terms of the new message;

determining, utilizing one or more of the processors, a similarity score between the n-gram and the task entry, wherein the similarity score is indicative of a likelihood that the user has interest in associating the n-gram with the task entry; and

associating, utilizing one or more of the processors, the n-gram with the task entry based on the similarity score.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the task entry is created based on the one or more messages.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the task entry includes a plurality of information fields and wherein the similarity score is between the n-gram and a given information field of the information fields of the task entry, and wherein associating the n-gram with the task entry includes associating the n-gram with the given information field based on the similarity score.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein one or more task terms are assigned to the given information field.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the one or more task terms are identified from the terms of the one or more messages and are utilized to create the task entry prior to the new message being sent or received by the user.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

replacing the task terms with the n-gram if the similarity score between the n-gram and the given information field satisfies a threshold value.

7. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

prompting the user to replace the task terms with the n-gram.

8. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

ranking the n-gram relative to other n-grams associated with the given information field, wherein the ranking for the n-gram is based on the similarity score.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying an input term provided by the user as input to an input task information field of the task information fields;

ranking the n-gram relative to other n-grams based on similarity between the n-gram and the input term; and

providing the n-gram to the user as an autocomplete suggestion for the input term based on the ranking.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the ranking is further based on the similarity score between the n-gram and the task entry.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

determining at least one of the other n-grams from the one or more messages.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining an annotation for the n-gram, wherein the annotation is determined based on one or more other terms of the new message; and

associating the annotation with the n-gram.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the information fields of the task entry is associated with an entity, and wherein determining the similarity score includes determining an association between the n-gram and the entity.

14. A method, comprising:

identifying a task entry of a user utilizing one or more processors, wherein the task entry includes one or more information fields, and wherein a given information field of the information fields is associated with a task term;

identifying, utilizing one or more of the processors, one or more messages sent or received by the user after creation of the task entry of the user, wherein each of the messages includes one or more message terms;

identifying, utilizing one or more of the processors, an association between the task entry and the one or more messages;

determining, utilizing one or more of the processors, an n-gram based on the message terms of one or more of the messages;

determining, utilizing one or more of the processors, a similarity score between the n-gram and the given information field of the task entry;

ranking, utilizing one or more of the processors, the n-gram and the task term based on the similarity score.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

identifying an input term provided by the user as input to the given information field, and wherein the ranking is further based on the input term.

16. A system including memory and one or more processors operable to execute instructions stored in memory, comprising instructions to:

identify a task entry of a user, wherein the task entry includes one or more information fields;

identify one or more messages sent or received by the user, wherein each of the messages includes one or more terms;

identify an association between the task entry and the one or more messages;

identify a new message that is related to the one or more messages, wherein the new message is sent or received by the user after creation of the task entry of the user, and wherein the new message includes one or more new message terms;

determine an n-gram based on the one or more new message terms of the new message;

determine a similarity score between the n-gram and the task entry, wherein the similarity score is indicative of a likelihood that the user has interest in associating the n-gram with the task entry; and

associate the n-gram with the task entry based on the similarity score.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the task entry includes a plurality of information fields and wherein the similarity score is between the n-gram and a given information field of the information fields of the task entry, and wherein the instructions to associate the n-gram with the task entry includes instructions to associate the n-gram with the given information field based on the similarity score.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the one or more task terms are identified from the terms of the one or more messages and are utilized to create the task entry prior to the new message being sent or received by the user.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the instructions further include instructions to replace the task terms with the n-gram if the similarity score between the n-gram and the given information field satisfies a threshold value.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the instructions further include instructions to:

rank the n-gram relative to other n-grams associated with the given information field, wherein the ranking for the n-gram is based on the similarity score.

21. The system of claim 16, wherein the instructions further include instructions to:

identify an input term provided by the user as input to an input task information field of the task information fields;

rank the n-gram relative to other n-grams based on similarity between the n-gram and the input term; and

provide the n-gram to the user as an autocomplete suggestion for the input term based on the ranking.

22. The system of claim 16, wherein the instructions further include instructions to:

determine an annotation for the n-gram, wherein the annotation is determined based on one or more other terms of the new message; and

associate the annotation with the n-gram.

23. The system of claim 16, wherein at least one of the information fields of the task entry is associated with an entity, and wherein the instructions to determine the similarity score includes instructions to determine an association between the n-gram and the entity.