Marking and annotating electronic documents

• US 20060048046A1
• Filed: 08/24/2004
• Published: 03/02/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 08/24/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Mohania, Mukesh Kumar, Joshi, Mukul Madhular
• Granted Patent: US 7,299,407 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/230
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes

Abstract

A user can highlight text and provide accompanying annotations. Highlighted text, accompanying annotations, and time-stamp information are stored in a user profile that is maintained locally with a web browser, at the client side. A retrieved web page is presented to a user with annotations of some form, based upon the user profile. The retrieved web page may typically be annotated through marked or highlighted portions of text, so that the user can readily locate this information in the web page, and assess the relevance of the retrieved page.

Claims

1. A method for marking and annotating an electronic document, said method comprising:

receiving annotations made by a user to at least one electronic document;

storing a user profile based upon the received annotations made to the electronic document; and

displaying annotations to a second electronic document based upon the stored user profile.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising determining user interface events that indicate said received annotations.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising determining text that relates to said received annotations.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said received annotations comprise highlighted text and annotation comments.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the displayed annotations comprise at least highlighted text.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising storing in a stored user profile highlighted text and annotation comments.

7. A computer program for annotating an electronic document comprising computer software recorded on a computer-readable medium for performing a method comprising:

receiving annotations made by a user to at least one electronic document;

storing a user profile based upon the received annotations made to the electronic document; and

displaying annotations to a second electronic document based upon the stored user profile.

9. The computer program as claimed in claim 7, wherein said method further comprises determining user interface events that indicate said received annotations.

10. The computer program as claimed in claim 7, wherein said method further comprises determining text that relates to said received annotations.

11. The computer program as claimed in claim 7, wherein in said method, said received annotations comprise highlighted text and annotation comments.

12. The computer program as claimed in claim 7, wherein in said method, the displayed annotations comprise at least highlighted text.

13. The computer program as claimed in claim 7, wherein said method further comprises storing in a stored user profile highlighted text and annotation comments.

8. A computer system for annotating electronic documents comprising computer software recorded on a computer-readable medium said computer system comprising:

means for receiving annotations made by a user to at least one electronic document;

means for storing a user profile based upon the received annotations made to the electronic document; and

means for displaying annotations to a second electronic document based upon the stored user profile.

14. The computer system as claimed in claim 8, further comprising means for determining user interface events that indicate said received annotations.

15. The computer system as claimed in claim 8, further comprising means for determining text that relates to said received annotations.

16. The computer system as claimed in claim 8, further comprising means for storing in a stored user profile highlighted text and annotation comments.