# US 9,436,685 B2 · Techniques for electronic aggregation of information

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- Number: US 9,436,685 B2
- Document ID: US9436685B2
- Status: Granted
- Kind: B2
- Application number: 13/073,931
- Filed: 2011-03-28
- Published: 2012-06-28
- Granted: 2016-09-06
- Earliest claimed: 2010-12-23
- Assignees: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
- Applicants: Tali Roth; Scott Stiles; Matthew Wood; Michael Affronti; Jodie Draper; Malia Douglas; Janet Schorr; Zeyad Rajabi; Robin Troy
- Inventors: Tali Roth; Scott Stiles; Matthew Wood; Michael Affronti; Jodie Draper; Malia Douglas; Janet Schorr; Zeyad Rajabi; Robin Troy
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US9436685B2

## CPC

- G06F 3/04883: for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
- G06F 3/0482: Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
- G06F 3/04842: Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements (G06F3/0482 takes precedence)
- G06F 3/04847: Interaction techniques to control parameter settings, e.g. interaction with sliders or dials
- G06F 3/0486: Drag-and-drop
- G06F 16/41: Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
- G06F 16/44: Browsing; Visualisation therefor
- G06F: ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING (computer systems based on specific computational models G06N)

## Abstract

Techniques for an electronic montage system are described. An apparatus may comprise a logic device arranged to execute a montage application comprising an authoring component operative to provide a presentation surface having multiple presentation tiles, receive control directives to associate content files with presentation tiles, generate tile objects for the content files based on content file types for the content files, and store the presentation surface and tile objects as a montage. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

## Claims

### Claim 1

A method, comprising:
providing a presentation surface having multiple presentation tiles;
receiving a control directive to associate a content file with a presentation tile;
identifying a content file type for the content file;
retrieving a portion of content from the content file based on the content file type using a content selection algorithm having a set of defined rules pertaining to types of information to retrieve from the content file;
generating multiple versions of a tile object based on the set of defined rules, the multiple versions of the tile object pertaining to different combinations of sub-portions of the same content portion;
receiving a control directive to select one of the versions of the tile object as a selected tile object; and
storing the presentation surface and selected tile object as a montage in which the selected tile object is presented in the presentation tile, the montage capable of navigation using a gesture interface that allows manipulation of the tile object through a gesture to present a second tile object in the presentation tile while other tile objects of the montage remain unchanged.

### Claim 2 (depends on 1)

The method of claim 1, comprising receiving the control directive to associate the content file with the presentation tile from an input device.

### Claim 3 (depends on 1)

The method of claim 1, comprising identifying the content file type for the content file as an application file type including a word processing file, a spreadsheet file, a presentation file, a personal information manager file, a database file, a publisher file, a drawing file, a note file, or a message file.

### Claim 4 (depends on 1)

The method of claim 1, comprising retrieving the portion of content from the content file based on a type definition for the content file type, the portion of content comprising information of a content and properties class, a content objects class, or a content pages class.

### Claim 5 (depends on 1)

The method of claim 1, comprising publishing the montage and the content file to a network service.

### Claim 6 (depends on 1)

The method of claim 1, comprising receiving a reference to the montage and a reference to the content file stored in a remote datastore from a network service.

### Claim 7 (depends on 1)

The method of claim 1, comprising associating a reference to the content file stored in a remote datastore of a network service with the selected tile object.

### Claim 8 (depends on 1)

The method of claim 1, comprising publishing a reference to the montage on a network service.

### Claim 9 (depends on 1)

The method of claim 1, comprising sending the montage or a reference to the montage in a message.

### Claim 10 (depends on 1)

The method of claim 1, comprising:
receiving a control directive to open the montage;
retrieving the montage from a remote datasource; and
presenting a user interface view of the presentation surface with the selected tile object in the presentation tile.

### Claim 11 (depends on 1)

The method of claim 1, comprising:
receiving a control directive to select the tile object;
retrieving the content file for the tile object from a remote datastore; and
presenting a user interface view of the content file.

### Claim 12

An article of manufacture comprising a storage device containing instructions that when executed enable a system to:
generate a montage comprising a presentation surface with multiple presentation tiles each having a selected tile object for a corresponding content file, the selected tile object having been selected from a plurality of tile objects generated via a content selection algorithm having a set of defined rules pertaining to types of information to retrieve from the content file for each tile object, the montage arranged for use with a gesture interface that allows manipulation of a tile object presented in a presentation tile, through a gesture, to present a second tile object in the presentation tile while the other tile objects of the montage remain unchanged;
send the montage and content files to a network service;
receive references to the montage and each content file; and
associate a reference for a content file with a corresponding tile object.

### Claim 13 (depends on 12)

The article of manufacture of claim 12, further comprising instructions that when executed enable the system to publish the reference to the montage to the network service.

### Claim 14 (depends on 12)

The article of manufacture of claim 12, further comprising instructions that when executed enable the system to send the montage or a reference to the montage in a message.

### Claim 15

An apparatus, comprising:
a logic device arranged to execute a montage application comprising an authoring component operative to provide a presentation surface having multiple presentation tiles, receive control directives to associate content files with presentation tiles, generate multiple versions of a tile object for each content file using a content selection algorithm having a set of defined rules pertaining to types of information to retrieve from the content file for each version, receive a control directive to select one tile object as a selected tile object for each content file, and store the presentation surface and selected tile objects as a montage capable of navigation using a gesture interface that allows manipulation of a tile object presented in a presentation tile, through a gesture, to present a second tile object in the presentation tile while the other tile objects of the montage remain unchanged.

### Claim 16 (depends on 15)

The apparatus of claim 15, the authoring component comprising multiple type modules corresponding to each content file type, a type module operative to retrieve information from a content file based on a type definition for a content file type, and generate a tile object based on the retrieved information and the type definition.

### Claim 17 (depends on 15)

The apparatus of claim 15, comprising a security component operative to receive a control directive to authorize communicating content files from a local datastore to a remote datastore for a network storage device accessible by a network service.

### Claim 18 (depends on 15)

The apparatus of claim 15, comprising a publishing component operative to publish the montage and content files from a local datastore to a remote datastore for a network storage device accessible by a network service.

### Claim 19 (depends on 15)

The apparatus of claim 15, comprising a messaging component operative to send the montage or a reference to the montage in a message.

### Claim 20 (depends on 15)

The apparatus of claim 15, comprising a presentation component operative to generate a first user interface view to present each selected tile object within each associated presentation tile of the presentation surface, receive a control directive to reselect a selected tile object, and generate a second user interface view to present a content file corresponding to the reselected tile object.