US 8,898,595 B2Granted

Automatically highlighting text in an electronic document

AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation

InventorsBrian John Cragun, Paul Reuben Day

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

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Abstract

An apparatus and method helps a user to determine parts of an electronic document that are of interest by allowing the user to define preferences for processing an electronic document, and by automatically highlighting one or more portions of the document according to the user preferences. Highlighting includes any way to enhance or alter the appearance of text, including bold, italics, underlining, change in font style, change in font size, change in color, change in background color, etc. The automatic highlighting of portions of the document attract the user's eyes to that portion of the document, which helps the user to discern whether or not the highlighted portion is relevant or interesting. The preferred embodiments also include a document generator that takes an input document and generates therefrom an output document that has one or more highlighted portions that are hard-coded into the document according to the user preferences.

Claims17

Dependent claims

An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor;
a memory coupled to the at least one processor;
an electronic document residing in the memory;
an automatic document processing mechanism residing in the memory and executed by the at least one processor, the automatic document processing mechanism processing the electronic document and automatically producing selective highlighting for at least a portion of the electronic document to enhance the comprehension of the electronic document by a human reader, the automatic document processing mechanism determining which portions of the electronic document to selectively highlight based on user preferences that include a specification of at least one word in the electronic document that triggers highlighting of a corresponding portion of the electronic document, the automatic document processing mechanism including:
a display mechanism that displays the selective highlighting in a display of the electronic document without altering the electronic document;
and
a conversion mechanism that generates a new electronic document that includes all information in the electronic document and additionally includes at least one markup language tag that specifies to the automatic document processing mechanism how to perform at least a portion of the selective highlighting of the new electronic document.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 11/669,886Filed 31 Jan 2007 · continuation
Priority: 29 Oct 2002
Published: US 2007/0124672 A131 May 2007
Granted: 25 Nov 2014
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification4 codes

G06F 16/34
Of unstructured textual data: browsing; Visualisation therefor
G09G 5/34
Control arrangements or circuits for visual indicators common to cathode-ray tube indicators and other visual indicators: for rolling or scrolling
G06F
Computing and data processing
G09G
Arrangements or circuits for control of indicating devices using static means to

Family

Application10/282,567Parent of this continuation · filed 29 Oct 2002
US 2007/0124672 A1Pre-grant publication · published 31 May 2007
US 7,194,693 B2Parent of this continuation
US 2004/0080532 A1Published application
US 8,898,595 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.