US 8,019,709 B2Granted

Method and system for rule-based content filtering

AssigneeVantrix Corporation

InventorsRichard Elliott Norton, Louis-Rene Poirier-Beauchemin, Robert Héroux, Mario Joseph Leo Claude Lavalliere

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

A system and method for content-filtering of data containers in a network supporting versatile communications services are disclosed. The content-filtering system is integrated with a content-adaptation system. Several server units handle data containers formulated at source according to different protocols. A content filtering process relies on characterizing each component of a container to produce a set of content descriptors and producing a set of binary conditions for each component according to a preset criterion for each descriptor. A set of rules is devised where each rule applies a respective Boolean expression to a subset of the conditions to prescribe a respective content-editing action. Methods of specifying and evaluating a rule's Boolean expression are disclosed. A formal graph is used to define inter-dependence of rules.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system for filtering content of multimedia data containers, comprising:

a network interface for receiving said multimedia data containers from a network;
and
a plurality of server units, each server unit comprising a set of processors and a set of memory devices, having installed thereon:
a filter-definition module, having computer readable instructions stored in a computer readable storage medium, for acquisition of definitions of a set of filters from a user, each filter specifying a definition of a content descriptor, a descriptor criterion, and an operator;
a rule-construction module, having computer readable instructions stored in a computer readable storage medium, for acquisition of a set of content-filtering rules from said user, each rule specifying a Boolean expression of a subset of said filters and a filtering action;
a module for characterizing content of each component of a multimedia data container, determining said content descriptor, applying said operator, and determining a state of said each filter;
a module for determining a binary output of each said rule;
and
a module for performing a filtering action relevant to said content subject to a preset value of said binary output.

6 more elements

A method of filtering content of a data container, comprising:

defining a set of binary conditions where each binary condition is a function of a selected descriptor of said content and a respective criterion of said descriptor;
defining a set of Boolean expressions and corresponding content-filtering actions;
selecting a Boolean expression of specified μ binary conditions represented as a string of μ bits, μ>1;
evaluating said Boolean expression for each of 2μ values of said string to produce a rule vector of 2μ entries, each entry being a state of a content metric corresponding to one of the 2μ values of said string;
receiving a data container;
determining values of said specified μ binary conditions according to content of said data container;
determining entry in said rule vector corresponding to an index determined by said specified μ binary conditions;
and
executing a content-filtering action according to a value of said entry.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.