System, methods, and user interface for information searching, tagging, organization, and display

• US 9,449,080 B1
• Filed: 07/26/2013
• Issued: 09/20/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/2010
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Linfo IP LLC (Pueblo Nuevo LLC)
• Original Assignee: Guangsheng Zhang
• Inventors: Zhang, Guangsheng
• Primary Examiner(s): Padmanabhan, Kavita
• Assistant Examiner(s): Burke, Tionna
• Application Number:
  US13/951,487
• Time in Patent Office: 1,152 Days
• Field of Search: 715/256
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/313 Selection or weighting of terms for indexing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3331 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3346 using probabilistic model
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis

Abstract

A system, methods, and user interface for automatically extracting important terms from a document content as terms representing the important information in the content, and using the extracted term or terms to label the document, either as a tag or a summary or category, or for renaming the document. Methods for determining the terms as important include content analysis methods based on grammatical, semantic, contextual, positional, frequency, and other attributes associated with the terms. Documents can include any type of document containing text, including personal or company documents, Web pages, emails, reviews and comments, etc. In some embodiments, a document can also be a collection of documents.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, by a computer, a text content as an electronic file object containing one or more terms;

wherein a term comprises one or more words or phrases or sentences, wherein the electronic file object is associated with a name;

receiving, by a computer, a term extracted from the electronic file object;

displaying, by a computer and in a computer user interface, the term in association with the name of the electronic file object;

wherein the term is obtained by;

(a) identifying one or more terms in the text content,

(b) identifying a term among the one or more terms in the text content,

(c) comparing the term with the name of the electronic file object,

(d) selecting the term if the term is different from the name of the electronic file object,

(e) identifying a sentence containing the term;

(f) dividing the sentence into a first part comprising a grammatical subject of the sentence and a second part not comprising the grammatical subject of the sentence; and

(g) extracting the term if the term is in the first part of the sentence,

wherein the extraction process is performed by a processor residing either on the same computing device as the electronic file object, or on a different computing device from the text content.

2. The method of claim 1,

wherein the term is extracted further based on a semantic attribute or a frequency attribute of the term in the text content.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

using the term to link the text content to a category, or to label the text content as belonging to a category.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing, by a computer, an option for a user to use the term to modify or replace the name of the electronic file object.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the term is extracted when the electronic file object is in an unopened state, and the term is displayed without opening the electronic file object for display.

6. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, by a computer, a text content as an electronic file object containing one or more terms;

wherein a term comprises one or more words or phrases, wherein the electronic file object is associated with a name or icon;

displaying, by a computer and in association with the electronic file object, a text unit extracted from the electronic file object, wherein the text unit comprises at least a sentence, wherein the text unit is displayed as a summary of the content in the electronic file object, wherein the electronic file object is in an unopened state, and the text unit is displayed without opening the electronic file object for display;

wherein the text unit is obtained by;

(a) determining an importance measure for the one or more terms in the text content,

(b) selecting a term with an importance measure above a threshold,

(c) identifying a sentence containing the term,

(d) dividing the sentence into a first part comprising a grammatical subject and a second part not comprising the grammatical subject,

(e) identifying whether the term is in the grammatical subject of the sentence,

(f) selecting the sentence as an element in the text unit if the term is in the grammatical subject of the sentence,

(g) if the sentence is selected, extracting the text unit;

wherein the extraction process is performed by a processor residing either on the same computing device as the electronic file object, or on a different computing device.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the sentence is selected further based on the importance measure of the term.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

providing a user interface function for a user to act on a user interface object including the name or an icon of the electronic file object;

displaying the text unit in response to a user action on the user interface object, wherein the user action comprises a pointing or touching action.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the importance measure of term is determined based on a contextual attribute associated with the term, wherein the contextual attribute comprises a grammatical attribute, a semantic attribute, a frequency attribute, or a positional attribute.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein more than one electronic file objects are concurrently displayed in the user interface in a format comprising a list or a group view format, or a different viewing format.

11. A computer-implemented method for tagging or labeling electronic file objects containing text, comprising:

receiving, by the computer, a text content as an electronic file object containing one or more terms;

wherein a term comprises one or more words or phrases or sentences, wherein the electronic file object is associated with a name;

receiving, by the computer, a term extracted from the electronic file object;

comparing the term with the name of the electronic file object,

selecting the term if the term is different from the name of the electronic file object,

if the term is selected, displaying, by the computer and in a computer user interface, the term together with the name of the electronic file object, wherein the term is displayed as a label or tag of the electronic file object, or as a link to a category;

wherein the term is obtained by;

(a) identifying at least a portion of the text content,

(b) identifying a term in the portion of the text content,

(c) identifying a sentence containing the term;

(d) dividing the sentence into a first part comprising a grammatical subject of the sentence and a second part not comprising the grammatical subject of the sentence; and

(e) extracting the term if the term is in the first part of the sentence,

wherein the extraction process is performed by a processor residing either on the same computing device as the electronic file object, or on a different computing device.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

allowing a user to select or edit the term as a label for tagging or categorizing or renaming the electronic file object.

13. The method of claim 11,

wherein the electronic file object is in an unopened state, wherein the term is extracted from the text content without opening the electronic file object or without displaying the content of the electronic file object.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the term includes a word or phrase from the metadata associated with the electronic file object, including a term associated with or indicated by specific markup tags, or wherein the term is displayed as part of a sentence or paragraph containing the term.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

obtaining a first importance measure of the term inside the text content;

obtaining one or more documents other than the text content;

obtaining a second importance measure of the term in the one or more documents;

comparing the first importance measure of the term inside the text content with the second importance measure of the term in the one or more documents; and

determining the importance measure of the term based on the comparison.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

identifying a sentence containing the term;

dividing the sentence into a first part and a second part, wherein the first part contains a grammatical subject of the sentence, and the second part contains a non-subject part of the sentence;

determining the importance measure based on whether the term is in the first part of the sentence or the second part of the sentence.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the term importance score is determined based on a semantic attribute associated with the term.

18. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

identifying a positional attribute associated with the term, wherein the positional attributes includes the position of a term in the text content, or in a sentence or a paragraph, or the position of the sentence or paragraph in the text content; and

determining the term importance measure based on the positional attribute of the term in the text content.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the first importance measure is obtained based on a frequency of occurrences of the term in the text content, wherein the second importance measure is obtained based on a frequency of occurrences of the term in the one or more documents.

20. The method of claim 11, wherein the text content includes any content containing text, including a document, a Web page, a resume, a job description, a note, an email, a blog, a review or comment, residing on either a fixed or a mobile computing or communication device, or a collection of multiple documents, the method further comprising:

providing a user interface function for a user to act on a user interface object including the name or an icon of the electronic file object;

displaying the term in response to a user action on the user interface object, wherein the user action comprises a pointing or touching action.