Obtaining, managing and archiving conference data

• US 9,680,659 B2
• Filed: 08/27/2012
• Issued: 06/13/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 08/27/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: Tanaka, Shun, Uchida, Yuki
• Primary Examiner(s): Hasan, Syed
• Assistant Examiner(s): ABRAHAM, AHMED M
• Application Number:
  US13/595,885
• Publication Number:
  US 20140059010A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,751 Days
• Field of Search: 707661
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1831 Tracking arrangements for later retrieval, e.g. recording contents, participants activities or behavior, network status
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1089 by adding media; by removing media
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4038 with floor control
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/155 involving storage of or access to video conference sessions tracking arrangements for later retrieval of a computer conference content or participants activities H04L12/1831

Abstract

Tools can be provided for conducting a conference/meeting and/or obtaining, managing and archiving conference/meeting data. For example, a meeting participation application and multi-layer presentation data (including a presentation document and an overlay layer) can be provided through a network to a participant. The meeting participation application allows the participant to make annotations which overlay the presentation document, and captures the user input as data in the overlay layer. Thereafter, processing may be performed to extract keywords from the captured annotations, and such extracted keywords can be archived along with meeting materials, documents, information and other content as meeting data in a meeting database.

Claims

1. A conference data management apparatus for managing

meeting data, including a presentation document, corresponding to a specific meeting, the conference data management apparatus comprising:

an overlay engine part that associates, in a meeting database, the presentation document and sets of overlay data, associated via a unique conference ID with the specific meeting; and

a participant application part that provides a presentation user interface and presentation data through a network to a participant terminal, in response to a request from the participant terminal to participate in the specific meeting,

wherein the presentation data includes the presentation document and a set of overlay data,

wherein the participant application part adds user input received through the presentation user interface to the set of overlay data,

wherein the user input received through the presentation user interface and added to the overlay data includes overlay data access information indicating who is authorized to access the set of overlay data,

wherein the sets of overlay data associated with the presentation document, in the meeting database, include (i) a first set of overlay data in which the overlay data access information indicates public access to the first set of overlay data associated with the presentation document, and (ii) a second set of overlay data in which the overlay data access information indicates private access to the second set of overlay data associated with the presentation document, and

wherein upon the apparatus receiving a request from a requestor for a specified set of overlay data, the apparatus determines based on the overlay data access information corresponding to the specified set of overlay data whether the requestor is authorized to access the specified set of overlay data,

wherein the presentation user interface includes a link adding part for the participant to add an active link pointing to other content, specified by the participant through the presentation user interface at a particular moment of time, in association with a specified keyword,

wherein the conference data management apparatus further comprises;

a content capture database that archives specified content obtained from a content source through the network; and

a content capture part that retrieves, and archives in said content capture database, said other content specified through the active link, when the participant specifies the other content at the particular moment of time through the presentation user interface, and

wherein said other content archived in said content capture database is the other content obtained by the content capture part at the particular moment of time.

2. The conference data management apparatus of claim 1, wherein the meeting database associates (i) the one or more sets of overlay data and (ii) authors of the respective sets of overlay data.

3. The conference data management apparatus of claim 1,

wherein the participant application part provides a meeting participation application through a network,

wherein the meeting participation application includes:

a registration user interface that allows the participant to register for the specific meeting;

a participant authentication part that authenticates a request received through the network from a participant terminal to participate in the specific meeting,

wherein when the request from the participant terminal to participate in the specific meeting is authenticated, the participant application part provides the presentation user interface and the presentation data to the participant terminal.

4. The conference data management apparatus of claim 1, wherein the presentation user interface adds to the overlay data the active link pointing to said other content.

11. The conference data management apparatus of claim 1, wherein the presentation user interface includes selectable options to specify who is permitted access to the set of overlay data, and the selectable options includes (i) an option to permit public access to the set of overlay data to a requesting terminal that has not participated, in the specific meeting, and (ii) an option to specify private access to one or more registered terminals that participated in the specific meeting as a presenter or as another participant.

12. The conference data management apparatus of claim 1, wherein when the overlay data access information associated with the specified set of overlay data specifies public access, the requestor is permitted to access the specified set of overlay data even if the requestor was not a participant of the specific meeting.

5. A conference application providing apparatus including a processor and a non-transitory computer readable medium tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the processor to provide a meeting participation application through a network, said conference application providing apparatus comprising:

a user interface providing part that provides a presentation user interface and presentation data to a participant terminal, in response to a request received through the network from the participant terminal to participate in a specific meeting, the presentation data including a presentation document and a set of overlay data; and

an overlay engine part that captures and associates, in a meeting database, the presentation document and sets of overlay data corresponding to respective participants of the specific meeting and associated via a unique conference ID with the specific meeting, and that adds user input received through the presentation user interface to the overlay data,

wherein the user input received through the presentation user interface and added to the overlay data includes overlay data access information indicating who is authorized to access the set of overlay data,

wherein the presentation user interface provided to the participant terminal includes an access control part for a participant operating the participant terminal to specify whether the overlay data is to be accessible by one or more other participants of the specific meeting,

wherein the sets of overlay data associated with the presentation document, in the meeting database, include (i) a first set of overlay data in which the overlay data access information indicates public access to the first set of overlay data associated with the presentation document, and (ii) a second set of overlay data in which the overlay data access information indicates private access to the second set of overlay data associated with the presentation document, and the sets of overlay data associated with the presentation document are provided to, and maintained by, a conference data management apparatus,

wherein upon the conference data management apparatus receiving a request from a requestor for a specified set of overlay data, the conference data management apparatus determines based on the overlay data access information corresponding to the specified set of overlay data whether the requestor is authorized to access the specified set of overlay data,

wherein the presentation user interface includes a link adding part for the participant to add an active link pointing to other content, specified by the participant through the presentation user interface at a particular moment of time, in association with a specified keyword,

wherein the conference data management apparatus archives, in a content capture database, specified content obtained from a content source through the network, and when the participant specifies the other content at the particular moment of time through the presentation user interface, the conference data management retrieves, and archives in said content capture database, said other content specified through the active link, and

wherein said other content archived in said content capture database is the other content obtained at the particular moment of time.

6. The conference application providing apparatus of claim 5, wherein the user input includes one or more of (i) writing via a touch-sensitive display of the participant terminal, (ii) writing via user operation of a pointer device to manipulate a pointer device, (iii) textual entry by user operation of a keyboard or graphical keyboard of the participant terminal, and (iv) oral input through a microphone of the participant terminal.

7. A system for managing and archiving meeting data corresponding to a specific meeting including a plurality of participants, the plurality of participants including a presenter associated with a presentation document corresponding to the specific meeting, the system comprising:

a meeting database that captures the meeting data for the specific meeting;

a content capture database; and

a conference data management apparatus including a non-transitory computer readable medium tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by a computer to configure the computer to archive and associate in the meeting database, the presentation document and sets of overlay data capturing annotations of the respective participants of the specific meeting and associated via a unique conference ID with the specific meeting,

wherein the overlay data includes overlay data access information indicating, for each set of overlay data, who is authorized to access the set of overlay data,

wherein upon the apparatus receiving a request from a requestor for a specified set of overlay data, the apparatus determines based on the overlay data access information corresponding to the specified set of overlay data whether the requestor is authorized to access the specified set of overlay data,

wherein the sets of overlay data associated with the presentation document, in the meeting database, includes (i) a first set of overlay data in which the overlay data access information indicates public access to the first set of overlay data associated with the presentation document, and (ii) a second set of overlay data in which the overlay data access information indicates private access to the second set of overlay data associated with the presentation document, and

wherein the overlay data image includes an active link to specified content obtained from a content source through the network and archived in said content capture database,

wherein the conference data management apparatus further comprises a content capture part that, when the conference data management apparatus receives an active link pointing to other content specified by a participant terminal at a particular moment of time, retrieves, and archives in said content capture database, said other content specified through the active link, and

wherein said other content archived in said content capture database is the other content obtained by the content capture part at the particular moment of time.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the overlay data includes an active link pointing to the content source of the specified content.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the meeting data archived in the meeting database for the specific meeting includes an active link pointing to a source document for the archived presentation document.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the conference data management apparatus causes the presentation document and the overlay data to be registered along with meeting minutes of the specific meeting, as the meeting data for the specific meeting in the meeting database.