Data processing: speech signal processing – linguistics – language – Linguistics – Multilingual or national language support
Reexamination Certificate
1997-01-22
2001-09-18
Lee, Ping (Department: 2747)
Data processing: speech signal processing, linguistics, language
Linguistics
Multilingual or national language support
C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06292770
ABSTRACT:
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention disclosed herein relates generally to data management and user interface systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for managing a list of data items such as addresses and a user interface for providing access to and use of the data items in languages such as Japanese which use phonetic and symbolic characters.
Data can be sorted in many ways. In many computer systems, data is sorted using the ASCII character set. Each character in the ASCII set is assigned a numerical value and data represented in ASCII format is sorted using these number values. The English alphabet is arranged in the ASCII character set in proper order, so that sorting a list of data according to ASCII is generally consistent with sorting the data alphabetically.
However, the order in which data is sorted in other languages is not always consistent with the order in which data sets such as ASCII are sorted. Moreover, some Asian languages, Japanese in particular, do not have an alphabet per se but rather employ symbolic characters and phonetic characters. In Japanese, concepts are represented by the ideographic or symbolic characters called kanji, while sounds are represented by one of two phonetic character sets, hirigana and katakana, collectively referred to as kana. Although Japanese people visualize and read in kanji, kanji symbols do not have any inherent sequence which would make them suitable for sorting. The phonetic character sets, on the other hand, are organized in a sequence, for example, according to the gojuuonzu (or “table of fifty sounds”). The phonetic characters can also be represented in English characters, a representation called romaji.
Japanese people prefer to read kanji characters but prefer to see data ordered according to kana. However, computer character sets such as ASCII or Unicode (a standard, two byte, multilingual character set which is a superset of ASCII) can not provide the functionality needed to sort data according to a scheme different than how the data is displayed, and thus existing computer systems do not, to the inventor's knowledge, meet the needs of the Japanese market.
The sorting problem described above becomes particularly important in the context of application programs which use data represented in one particular format. For example, a messaging system which transfers messages among users or among post offices determines where to send messages based on addresses represented in ASCII according to a predefined format such as the standard Internet e-mail format. Also, web sites available over the World Wide Web are identified by Uniform or Universal Resource Locators or URLs represented in ASCII characters according to a predefined format, and browser programs search for and locate particular sites and particular documents stored on the sites using these URLs. As yet a further example, operating systems represent filenames or directory names in ASCII according to particular formats.
In programs of these types, Japanese users are forced to learn and employ the data format required for the particular program, even though the format is in ASCII with which they are not naturally familiar. Also, Japanese users must become accustomed to searching for particular data from a list of such data which is displayed in ASCII format and sorted according to ASCII, even though they are naturally familiar with entirely different display and ordering arrangements in their non-computerized applications.
There is thus a need for a program which presents data to Japanese users in the familiar kanji form sorted according to the familiar kana form, and which provides a user interface for Japanese users which allows them to work with data in kanji and kana but which functions with the data in the format required by the program.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to solve the problems described above with existing computer programs.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a user interface for Japanese users which allows them to work with data in kana and kanji forms.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a user interface in a messaging system which uses addresses in ASCII but which allows Japanese users to view and work with addresses in kanji and kana form.
The above and other objects are achieved by a method for providing an application program user interface for a language having symbolic and phonetic characters, the application program using data represented in a program format different than the symbolic and phonetic characters. The method comprises storing a plurality of data items in a list, each data item being represented in phonetic, symbolic and program format. The data items are usable by the application program to identify a particular user, file or object accessible to or addressable by the application program. In some embodiments, the data items are addresses used by a messaging system such as an electronic mail system.
The method further involves sorting the list in a first order based upon the phonetic form of the data items, allowing a user of the application program to select a given data item from the list by inputting the given data item in phonetic form, locating the input given data item from the list using the first order, and retrieving the program format of the given data item for use by the application program. The program format of the given data item can then be used by the application program to identify the user, file or object identified by the given data item. For example, an address can be used to send a message over a network to a specific user identified by the address. A URL can be used to locate and retrieve a specific document available over the World Wide Web.
In further embodiments of the invention, the symbolic form of the given data item input in phonetic form is displayed to the user. For example, for e-mail addresses, the user inputs the address in phonetic form in one field on a screen display, the program locates the address in the address directory using the first order, and the symbolic form is retrieved and displayed in a second field in the screen.
In some embodiments, the method further involves sorting the list in a second order based upon the program format of the data items. When the application program is to display a given data item to the user other than as a result of selection of the data item by the user, e.g., when a message is received by the user, the program locates the given data item from the list using the second order, retrieves the symbolic form of the given data item from the list, and displays the given data item to the user at least in symbolic form. The given data item can be displayed to the user in both symbolic form and program format.
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Japanese Handprint Segmentation; IBM TDB v39 n3 03-96 p.263-276; Mar. 1996; excerpts as retrieved from Software Patent Institute database available at www.spi.org.
Structure of Kana Address Dicti
Brown & Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner LLP
Edouard Patrick N.
International Business Machines - Corporation
Lee Ping
LandOfFree
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