Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
2000-09-13
2002-09-24
Feild, Joseph H. (Department: 2176)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06457026
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to display of electronic documents and more particularly to method and apparatus for augmenting electronic document display with features to enhance the experience of reading an electronic document on a display.
Increasingly, readers of documents are being called upon to assimilate vast quantities of information in a short period of time. To meet the demands placed upon them, readers find they must read documents “horizontally,” rather than “vertically,” i.e., they must scan, skim, and browse sections of interest in multiple documents rather than read and analyze a single document from beginning to end.
Documents are now more and more available in electronic form. Some documents are available electronically by virtue of their having been locally created using word processing software. Other electronic documents are accessible via the Internet. Yet others may become available in electronic form by virtue of being scanned in, copied, or faxed. See commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,477, entitled AUTOMATIC AND TRANSPARENT DOCUMENT ARCHIVING, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference.
However, the mere availability of documents in electronic form does not assist the reader in confronting the challenges of assimilating information quickly. Indeed, many time-challenged readers still prefer paper documents because of their portability and the ease of flipping through pages.
Certain tools exist to take advantage of the electronic form documents to assist harried readers. Tools exist to search for documents both on the Internet and locally. However, once the document is identified and retrieved, further search capabilities are limited to keyword searching. Automatic summarization techniques have also been developed but have limitations in that they are not personalized. They summarize based on general features found in sentences.
What is needed is a document display system that helps the reader find as well as assimilate the information he or she wants more quickly. The document display system should be easily personalizable and flexible as well.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An automatic reading assistance application for documents in electronic form is provided by virtue of the present invention. In certain embodiments, an automatic annotator is provided which finds concepts of interest and keywords. The operation of the annotator is personalizable for a particular user. The annotator is also capable of improving its performance overtime by both automatic and manual feedback. The annotator is usable with any electronic document. Another available feature is a elongated thumbnail image of all or part of a multi-page document wherein a currently displayed section of the document is emphasized in the elongated thumbnail image. Movement of the emphasized area in the elongated thumbnail image is then synchronized with scrolling through the document.
In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention, a method for annotating an electronically stored document includes steps of: accepting user input indicating user-specific concepts of interest, analyzing the electronic document to identify locations of discussion of the user-specific concepts of interest, and displaying the electronic document with visual indications of the identified locations.
In accordance with a second aspect of the present invention, a method for displaying a multi-page document includes steps of: displaying a elongated thumbnail image of a multi-page document in a first viewing area of a display, displaying a section of the multi-page document in a second viewing area of the display in legible form, emphasizing an area of the elongated thumbnail image corresponding to the section displayed in the second viewing area, accepting user input controlling sliding of the emphasized area through the thumbnail image, and scrolling the displayed section through the second viewing area responsive to the scrolling so that the emphasized area continues to correspond to the displayed section.
A further understanding of the nature and advantages of the inventions herein may be realized by reference to the remaining portions of the specification and the attached drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4417239 (1983-11-01), Demke et al.
patent: 4823303 (1989-04-01), Terasawa
patent: 5153831 (1992-10-01), Yianilos
patent: 5309359 (1994-05-01), Katz et al.
patent: 5349658 (1994-09-01), O'Rourke et al.
patent: 5384703 (1995-01-01), Withgott et al.
patent: 5404295 (1995-04-01), Katz et al.
patent: 5418948 (1995-05-01), Turtle
patent: 5442795 (1995-08-01), Levine et al.
patent: 5479600 (1995-12-01), Wroblewski et al.
patent: 5481666 (1996-01-01), Nguyen et al.
patent: 5596700 (1997-01-01), Darnell et al.
patent: 5638543 (1997-06-01), Pedersen et al.
patent: 5680636 (1997-10-01), Levine et al.
patent: 5694559 (1997-12-01), Hobson et al.
patent: 5721897 (1998-02-01), Rubinstein
patent: 5737599 (1998-04-01), Rowe et al.
patent: 5748805 (1998-05-01), Withgott et al.
patent: 5761655 (1998-06-01), Hoffman
patent: 5778397 (1998-07-01), Kupiec et al.
patent: 5781785 (1998-07-01), Rowe et al.
patent: 5784616 (1998-07-01), Horvitz
patent: 5819301 (1998-10-01), Rowe et al.
patent: 5832474 (1998-11-01), Lopresti et al.
patent: 5838317 (1998-11-01), Bolnick et al.
patent: 5857185 (1999-01-01), Yamaura
patent: 5860074 (1999-01-01), Rowe et al.
patent: 5870770 (1999-02-01), Wolfe
patent: 5873107 (1999-02-01), Borovoy et al.
patent: 5933841 (1999-08-01), Schumacher et al.
patent: 5943679 (1999-08-01), Niles et al.
patent: 5946678 (1999-08-01), Aalbersgerg
patent: 5950187 (1999-09-01), Tsuda
patent: 5987454 (1999-11-01), Hobbs
patent: 6006218 (1999-12-01), Breese et al.
patent: 6021403 (2000-02-01), Horvitz et al.
patent: 6026409 (2000-02-01), Blumenthal
patent: 6028601 (2000-02-01), Machiraju et al.
patent: 6055542 (2000-04-01), Nielsen et al.
patent: 6094648 (2000-07-01), Aalbersberg
patent: 6101503 (2000-08-01), Cooper et al.
patent: 6182090 (2001-01-01), Peairs
patent: 0378848 (1990-07-01), None
patent: 0459174 (1991-12-01), None
patent: 0737927 (1996-10-01), None
patent: 0762297 (1997-03-01), None
patent: 0802492 (1997-10-01), None
patent: 2137788 (1984-10-01), None
patent: 2156118 (1985-10-01), None
patent: 2234609 (1991-06-01), None
patent: 2290898 (1999-10-01), None
patent: 8297677 (1996-11-01), None
Lam, Wai and Low, Kon-Fan “Automatic document classification based on probabilistic reasoning: model and performance analysis,” pp. 2719-2723, Oct. 1997, Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, vol. 3.*
Begole et al., “Supporting Worker Independence in Collaboration Transparency,” doc. ID: ncstrl.vatech_cs/TR-98-12, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (1994).
Begole et al., “Flexible Collaboration Transparency,” doc. ID: ncstrl,vatech_sc/TR-98-11, Virginia Polytechnic Instititue and State University (1998).
Byrd, D., “A Scrollbar-based Visualization for Document Navigation,”doc.ID: xxx.cs.IR/9902028, Computing Research Ropository: Information Retrieval (1999).
“Flexible JAMM Screenshots,” downloaded from internet site http://simon.cs.et.edu/-jamm May 4, 2000.
Taghva, K. et al., “An Evaluation of an Automatic Markup System,” Proceedings of the SPIE, vol. 2422, pp. 317-327, USA 1995.
Schweighofer, E. et al., “The Automatic Generation of Hypertext Links,”Database and Expert Systems Applications, 7th Int'l. Conference, DEXA '96 Proceedings, pp. 889-898, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany. 1996.
Sumita, K. et al., “Document Structure Extraction for Interactive Document Retrieval Systems,” Conference Proceedings, SIGDOC'93, 11th Annual Int'l. Conference, pp. 301-310, New York NY 1993.
Brandow, R., “Automatic Condensation of Electronic Publications by Sentence Selection,” Information Processing & Management, vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 675-685, 1995.
Apple Computer, Inc., “Getting help, and “Turning Balloon Help,” Macintosh Data Book, Reference 7 System, in Chapter 1 entitled “A review of Standard Macintosh Operations,” pp. 30-31 (1991).
Manber, Udi, “The Use of Cu
Graham Jamey
Stork David G.
Feild Joseph H.
Ricoh & Company, Ltd.
LandOfFree
System to facilitate reading a document does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with System to facilitate reading a document, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and System to facilitate reading a document will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2893121