Systems for sharing annotations and location references for same for displaying the annotations in context with an electronic document

• US 8,799,765 B1
• Filed: 03/25/2010
• Issued: 08/05/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Inkling Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Inkling Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: MacInnis, Charles M., Forman, Joshua John, Kyle, Scott William, Cromwell, Robert, Ballard, Kevin, Cho, Peter S., Halsall, Anne K
• Primary Examiner(s): Hutton, Jr., Doug
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mercado, Ariel
• Application Number:
  US12/731,656
• Time in Patent Office: 1,594 Days
• Field of Search: 715/230, 715/232, 715/233, 715/229
• US Class Current: 715/230
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/109 Font handling; Temporal or kinetic typography
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces

Abstract

In one embodiment, a user of a first portable digital computing device creates an annotation associated with a particular reading location within a reference document. The annotation and the reading location are shared with a second portable digital computing device storing a copy of the reference document. Using the shared information, the second device displays the reference document with the annotation shown at the reading location.

Claims

1. A digital computing device for viewing shared annotations of at least one electronic reference document, the device comprising a digital memory, a display, a user input interface, and a network interface;

and said computing device being configured to;

receive, over a network, via the network interface, a digital location identifier for navigation to a shared reading location with an associated annotation, said digital location identifier specifying the shared reading location within a version of the electronic reference document and does not include the version of the electronic reference document;

upon receipt of a selection to navigate to the shared reading location, determine if a user of the digital computing device has sufficient rights to use a copy of the electronic reference document referenced by the digital location identifier, and, if the user does not have sufficient rights, (i) provide a prompt with an option for the user to purchase said rights, (ii) responsive to confirmation of the purchase of the rights to use the copy of the electronic reference document, receive the copy of the electronic reference document, and (iii) store the copy of the electronic reference document in the digital memory; and

upon successful confirmation of the user'"'"'s rights to use the copy of the electronic reference document and responsive to the selection to navigate to the shared reading location (i) determining that the content referenced by the digital location identifier exists in the copy of the reference document, (ii) displaying at least a portion of the copy of the electronic reference document at the shared reading location and the associated annotation within the copy of the electronic reference document at the shared reading location.

2. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the digital location identifier specifies the reading location by specifying one or more of:

a letter, a word, a group of words, a title, a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter, a section, an image, a table, an interactive object, an assessment, and a page.

3. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the digital location identifier and the annotation are received from a second computing device connected to the network, wherein the device and the second device comprise heterogeneous computing platforms.

4. The computing device of claim 1, further configured to output to the display an additional annotation in real time, in response to receiving the additional annotation, without updating other portions of the display.

5. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the annotation comprises at least one of:

one or more words, one or more numerals, a mathematical formula, a graphical image, a link to a location, a universal resource locator (URL) address, a script, and highlighting of selected text.

6. The computing device of claim 1, wherein upon successful confirmation of the user'"'"'s rights to use the copy of the electronic reference document, the display of the electronic computing device displays a plurality of annotations received from one or more other electronic devices, each associated with a corresponding reading location within the reference document.

7. The computing device of claim 6, wherein the reading locations of at least two of the plurality of annotations identify locations within two different portions of the electronic reference document, the two different portions being non-contiguous, and wherein the computing device is further configured to output to the display a notes page comprising the at least two of the plurality of annotations.

8. The computing device of claim 7, wherein the device is further configured to output to the display the portion of the electronic reference document identified by selection of one of the plurality of annotations.

9. The computing device of claim 6, further configured to output to the display a heat-map indicating a concentration of the plurality of annotations at each of one or more respective locations within the electronic reference document.

10. The computing device of claim 1, further configured to:

receive, via the user input interface, the copy of the electronic reference document and to store the copy in the digital memory responsive to confirmation of the purchase of the rights to use the copy of the electronic reference document by the user.

11. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the computing device is configured to display the copy of the electronic reference document, with the annotation automatically shown at a nearest similar location on the display responsive to determining that the content referenced by the digital location identifier does not exist in the copy of the electronic reference document.

12. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the nearest similar location is determined to be a location which is a nearest similar anchor.

13. A non-transitory machine readable storage device tangibly storing a program of machine-readable instructions executable by a computer-based machine, which instructions, when performed by the computer-based machine, cause the computer-based machine to perform operations comprising:

receiving, over a network, via a network interface, a digital location identifier for navigation to a shared reading location with an associated annotation, said digital location identifier specifying the shared reading location within a version of the electronic reference document and does not include the version of the electronic reference document;

upon receipt of a selection to navigate to the shared reading location, determining if a user has sufficient rights to use a copy of the electronic reference document referenced by the digital location identifier, and, if the user does not have sufficient rights, (i) providing a prompt with an option for the user to purchase said rights, (ii) responsive to confirmation of the purchase of the rights to use the copy of the electronic reference document, receiving the copy of the electronic reference document, and (iii) storing the copy of the electronic reference document in the digital memory; and

upon successful confirmation of the user'"'"'s rights to use the copy of the electronic reference document and responsive to the selection to navigate to the shared reading location (i) determining that the content referenced by the digital location identifier exists in the copy of the reference document, (ii) displaying at least a portion of the copy of the electronic reference document at the shared reading location and the associated annotation within the copy of the electronic reference document at the shared reading location.

14. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 13, wherein the digital location identifier specifies the reading location by specifying one or more of:

a letter, a word, a group of words, a title, a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter, a section, an image, a table, an interactive object, an assessment, and a page.

15. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 13, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions, which when performed by the machine, cause the machine to perform the operations comprising:

outputting to the display an additional annotation in real time, in response to receiving the additional annotation, without updating other portions of the display.

16. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 13, wherein the annotation comprises at least one of:

one or more words, one or more numerals, a mathematical formula, a graphical image, a link to a location, a universal resource locator (URL) address, a script, and highlighting of selected text.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 13, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions, which when performed by the machine, cause the machine to perform the operations comprising:

displaying a plurality of annotations received from one or more electronic devices, each associated with a corresponding reading location within the electronic reference document.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 17, wherein the reading locations of at least two of the plurality of annotations identify locations within two different portions of the electronic reference document, the two different portions being non-contiguous, and wherein the instructions further comprise instructions, which when performed by the machine, cause the machine to perform the operations comprising:

outputting to the display a notes page comprising the at least two of the plurality of annotations.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 18, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions, which when performed by the machine, cause the machine to perform the operations of:

responsive to a selection of one of the plurality of annotations, outputting to the display the portion of the electronic reference document identified by the selected annotation.

20. The non-transitory machine-readable storage device of claim 17, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions, which when performed by the machine, cause the machine to perform the operations comprising:

outputting to the display a heat-map indicating a concentration of the plurality of annotations at each of one or more respective locations within the electronic reference document.