US 7,010,478 B2Granted

Compressing messages on a per semantic component basis while maintaining a degree of human readability

AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation

InventorsSharad Mathur, Gregory P. Baribault

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Abstract

A text message is first parsed into its constituent semantic components such as header fields and body components. Then, different compression methods may be performed on each semantic component depending on the importance of the semantic component, the context of the semantic component, the characteristics of the semantic component, and whether or not the semantic component uses natural language expressions. For example, it is determined what compression method, if any, is to be performed on the semantic component. Each semantic component may be compressed individually. Since text compression takes the unique features of each semantic component into consideration rather than considering the text message as a monolithic text unit, a more intuitive text compression results.

Claims16

Dependent claims

In a computer system having access to a text message that contains a plurality of semantic components that may include, for example, one or more headers or a message body, a method for compressing the text message on a per semantic component basis, with different compression techniques being applied to different semantic components of the text message, to form a compressed message while maintaining a degree of human readability, the method comprising the following:

an act of accessing the text message;
an act of parsing the text message into the plurality of semantic components;
and for at least some of the plurality of semantic components, performing the following:
an act of differentiating between each of the parsed semantic components and selecting a corresponding compression method, if any, to be used for each corresponding semantic component when compressing the semantic component for inclusion in the compressed message, taking into consideration the specific attributes of each semantic component in selecting a compression method appropriate for each semantic component;
wherein differentiating between the parsed semantic components includes determining whether each semantic component is considered to be a natural language component having natural language expressions, wherein selection of the compression method to use for each corresponding semantic component is based at least in part on whether said corresponding semantic component is determined to be a natural language component, and wherein semantic components determined tote natural language components are treated differently, using different compression techniques during compression, than semantic components that are determined to not be natural language components;
such that compression of semantic components determined to be natural language components includes obtaining a plurality of versions of compressed content and determining which of the plurality of versions provides a greatest amount of content without exceeding threshold limit, and such that compression of semantic components determined to not be natural language components includes using customized compression including at least one of replacing text with substitute text, removing at least one header in a message, deleting text and replacing at least one name with an initial;
and
an act of including the compressed semantic component in the compressed message.

5 more elements

In a computer system having access to a text message that contains a plurality of semantic components that may include, for example, one or more headers or a message body, a method for compressing the text message on a per semantic component basis to form a compressed message while maintaining a degree of human readability, the method comprising the following:

an act of accessing the text message;
an act of parsing the text message into the plurality of semantic components;
and
for at least some of the plurality of semantic components, performing a step for differentiating between each of the parsed semantic components and selecting a corresponding compression method, if any, to be used for each corresponding semantic component when compressing the semantic component for inclusion in the compressed message, taking into consideration the specific attributes of each semantic component in selecting a compression method appropriate for each semantic component so as to optimize the text compression on a per semantic component basis so that the more important information is included in the compressed message;
wherein differentiating between the parsed semantic components includes determining whether each semantic component is considered to be a natural language component having natural language expressions, wherein selection of the compression method to use for each corresponding semantic component is based at least in part on whether said corresponding semantic component is determined to be a natural language component and wherein semantic components determined to be natural language components are treated differently, using different compression techniques during compression, than semantic components that are determined to not be natural language components;
such that compression of semantic components determined to be natural language components includes obtaining plurality of versions of compressed content and determining which of the plurality of versions provides a greatest amount of content without exceeding a threshold limit, and such that compression of semantic components determined to not be natural language components includes using customized compression including at least one of replacing text with substitute text, removing at least one header in a message, deleting text and replacing at least one name with an initial.

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Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.