Method and apparatus for constructing and maintaining a user knowledge profile

• US 8,543,649 B2
• Filed: 04/29/2002
• Issued: 09/24/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/18/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Gilmour, David L., Wang, Eric
• Primary Examiner(s): TRUONG, CAM Y T
• Application Number:
  US10/135,254
• Publication Number:
  US 20020194178A1
• Time in Patent Office: 4,166 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/3, 707/4, 707/10, 707/5, 707/9, 707/6, 707/754, 707/783, 709/206
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/30 of unstructured textual data document management systems G06F16/93
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/31 User authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99939 Privileged access

Abstract

A method of constructing an entity profile, having private and public portions with different access restrictions, commences with the assignment of a confidence level to content within an electronic document. The electronic document may be associated with the first entity (e.g., may have been authored by or addressed to the first entity). The content may furthermore potentially be descriptive of the first entity. If the confidence level assigned to the content is less than a predetermined threshold, the content is automatically rejected for inclusion within the entity profile. On the other hand, if the confidence level assigned to the content exceeds the predetermined threshold, the content is included within the private portion of the entity profile. Thereafter, the content is automatically presented to the first entity for authorization, by the first entity, for inclusion of the content within the public portion of the profile. The public portion of the entity profile may be freely accessible by other entities, whereas the private portion may have access restrictions.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

intercepting, by the computer, emails sent by a first entity while the emails are being transmitted on a network;

automatically constructing, by the computer, a knowledge profile of the first entity based on a plurality of sets of text from the intercepted emails;

storing, by the computer, the knowledge profile as part of a knowledge base stored in a machine-accessible storage facility;

in response to preparation of a particular email to be sent by a second entity to at least one other entity of the network, identifying, by the computer, prior to sending the particular email by the second entity, one or more suggested potential recipients as meeting one or more criteria based at least in part on a comparison of the knowledge profile of the one or more suggested potential recipients and text contained in the particular email to be sent by the second entity;

outputting, by the computer, a recommendation to include at least a first entity as a recipient of the particular email to be sent by the second entity, the first entity meeting the one or more criteria and being one of the one or more suggested potential recipients; and

providing, by the computer, a matching metric indicative of a relative strength of the recommendation for the one or more suggested potential recipients, the matching metric comprises a sum of confidence level values associated with the one or more suggested potential recipients.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the knowledge profile is representative of an information focus of the first entity.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the knowledge profile is representative of knowledge possessed by the first entity.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein operating processing system to identify the first entity as meeting one or more criteria is done without reliance upon any predefined association between the first entity and the second entity.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the plurality of sets of text have been authored by the first entity.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the knowledge profile comprises a first portion and a second portion, and the first portion and the second portion have different access restrictions.

7. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 6, wherein the first portion comprises a public portion including public information and the second portion comprises a private portion including private information.

8. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 7, wherein the recommendation includes only information of the public portion of the knowledge profile of the first entity.

9. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 7, wherein the recommendation includes information of the private portion of the knowledge profile of the first entity based at least in part on authorization, by the first entity, to publish the information of the private portion of the knowledge profile with the recommendation.

10. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein one of the emails includes an attached file.

11. A system, comprising:

a memory;

a management server to intercept emails while the emails are being transmitted on a network by a first user and to automatically construct a knowledge profile of the first user based on a plurality of sets of text from the intercepted emails, the management server further to store the knowledge profile in a database in the memory; and

an access server to identify, prior to sending a particular email by a second user, one or more suggested potential recipients as meeting one or more criteria in response to preparation of the particular email to be sent by the second user and intended for at least one other user of the network, without reliance upon any user-defined association between the first user and the second user, by at least comparing the knowledge profile of the one or more suggested potential recipients with text contained in the particular email intended for the at least one other user, the access server further to recommend to include at least the first user as a recipient of the particular email to be sent by the second user, the first user meeting the one or more criteria and being one of the one or more suggested potential recipients, without reliance upon any user-defined association between the first user and the second user, the access server further to provide a matching metric indicative of a relative strength of the recommendation for the one or more suggested potential recipients, the matching metric comprises a sum of confidence level values associated with the one or more suggested potential recipients.

12. The system as recited in claim 11, wherein the knowledge profile is representative of an information focus of the first user.

13. The system as recited in claim 11, wherein the knowledge profile is representative of knowledge possessed by the first user.

14. The system as recited in claim 11, wherein the knowledge profile comprises a public portion and a private portion.

15. The system as recited in claim 11, wherein one of the emails includes an attached file.

16. A processing system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory coupled with the processor and storing instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processing system to perform a process that includes;

intercepting emails sent by a first entity while the emails are being transmitted on a network;

automatically constructing a knowledge profile of the first entity based on a plurality of sets of text from the intercepted emails;

storing the knowledge profile as part of a knowledge base stored in a machine-accessible storage facility;

in response to preparation of a particular email prepared by a second entity and intended for at least one other entity, identifying, prior to sending the particular email by the second entity, one or more suggested potential recipients as meeting one or more criteria based at least in part on a comparison of the knowledge profile of the one or more suggested potential recipients and text contained in the particular email prepared by the second entity;

outputting a recommendation to include at least a first entity as a recipient of the particular email prepared by the second entity, the first entity meeting the one or more criteria and being one of the one or more suggested potential recipients; and

providing a matching metric indicative of a relative strength of the recommendation for the one or more suggested potential recipients, the matching metric comprises a sum of confidence level values associated with the one or more suggested potential recipients.

17. The processing system as recited in claim 16, the memory further storing instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processing system to:

in response to identifying that the first entity meets the one or more criteria, indicate to the second entity that the first entity meets the one or more criteria.

18. The processing system as recited in claim 16, wherein the knowledge profile is representative of an information focus of the first entity.

19. The processing system as recited in claim 16, wherein the knowledge profile is representative of knowledge possessed by the first entity.

20. The processing system as recited in claim 16, wherein identifying the first entity as meeting one or more criteria is done without reliance upon any predefined association between the first entity and the second entity.

21. The processing system as recited in claim 16, wherein the plurality of sets of text have been authored by the first entity.

22. The processing system as recited in claim 16, the memory further storing instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processing system to:

prompt the first entity for authorization to publish at least a portion of the knowledge profile to the second entity, in response to determining that an association exists between search query and the knowledge profile of the first entity.

23. The processing system as recited in claim 16, wherein the knowledge profile comprises a first portion and a second portion, and the first portion and the second portion have different access restrictions.

24. The processing system as recited in claim 16, wherein one of the emails includes an attached file.