Other

Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.

Xerox Corporation

Morgan N Price

Gene Golovchinsky

William Noah Schilit

Catherine Claire Marshall

Kei Tanaka

Mark D Weiser

Patrick Chiu

Lynn D Wilcox

Abigail Jane Sellen

Frank M Shipman, Iii

Bernard Mont-Reynaud

Kenton P A O'Hara

William Noah Schlitt

The technique for selecting at least a part of object on an electronic media includes, providing annotations on the object, grouping the annotation on the object, and selecting one or both of the object and the annotations based on the grouping of the annotations on the object. The techniques also provide the system that selects a part of object on a media, that includes an annotation grouping circuit that provides annotations on the object and groups the annotations on the object, and an object selection circuit that selects at least one of the object and the annotations based on the grouping of the annotation on the object.

Methods and systems for selecting objects by grouping annotations on the objects

A system, apparatus, and article of manufacture for detecting a reader's interest in a particular external document through their markings and annotations, and processing the marks in various ways, is provided. By detecting anchors proximal to annotations made by a reader, a collection of the annotated anchors and the related documents may be organized and generated for a reader to process according to their desires.

Detection and processing of annotated anchors

A system for automatic emphasis of freeform annotations contained within an electronic document is performed based on a determined importance of each annotation. The importance of each annotation is determined by a mark parser that groups, types and ranks each of the annotations. A weighted value is assigned to each grouped, ranked and typed annotation based on temporal and spatial information. The display characteristics of the weighted annotation is altered based on the weighted value.

Systems and methods for automatic emphasis of freeform annotations

A document storage management system and method that manages the storage of documents based upon the similarity of the content of the documents. Groups of documents are created based upon the similarity of the contents of the documents. Those groups are displayed to the user in a ranked list of selectable groups to permit selection of a group or document. The storage of the selected group or document is then managed by, for example, deleting, compressing, or copying. The displayed list may be ranked based upon a least recently used policy, the relevance to a predetermined topic, the size of the group, the radius of the group based upon the maximum distance of any document from the group centroid, the number of documents in the group and any other combination of parameters.

Document cache replacement policy for automatically generating groups of documents based on similarity of content

The reading and writing system enhances free-form ink annotating and note taking by creating links between passages in response to free-form ink. The reading and writing system generates links between free-form ink anchors and also generates links between documents in different windows when a free-form ink stroke extends across window boundaries. The reading and writing system also removes a link when the free-form ink stroke representing the link is erased. The reading and writing system will display the ink anchors in a display showing all related linked anchors with their surrounding context when a corresponding link is selected.

Method and system for creating ad-hoc links from free-form ink

The method and system of the invention maintains the indication of the logical relationship of freeform digital ink annotations to objects in an electronic display even as the view changes. The invention maps the logical relationship of the freeform digital ink annotations to objects in the view based upon the layout relationships of the freeform digital ink annotations to the objects in the view. If the view changes, the invention maintains the layout relationship of the freeform digital ink annotations to the objects in the view based upon the mapping of the freeform digital ink annotations to the objects.

Method and system for maintaining freeform ink annotations on changing views

The document reading system passively analyzes a document to generate margin or end notes of references to other documents that relate to annotated passages in the document or to the entire document. The invention is responsive to the annotation of a document to passively generate a query that retrieves documents that have similar content to the annotated passage. The retrieved documents are available to the reader through selectable links placed in the margin near the annotation. Additionally, the invention provides end notes with links to documents that are similar in content to the overall content of the annotated document. The invention assists the reader by passively generating selectable links to related documents to assist the user in relating the new document to previously read material.

Displaying in a first document a selectable link to a second document based on a passive query

The method and system of the invention enables free-from digital ink annotation of data traces and storage management of the data trace based upon the free-from digital ink annotations. An embodiment of the system and method of the invention receives a freeform digital ink annotation on a data trace, maps the freeform digital ink annotation to the data corresponding to the annotated portions of the data trace and renders the freeform digital ink annotations on a display of the data trace.

Method and system for freeform digital ink annotation of data traces

A method and apparatus for generating reminder messages based on a freeform input is disclosed. In one embodiment, freeform inputs are handwritten annotations on paper that are scanned into a computer system. Based on information contained in the freeform input, the system creates a reminder message and transmits it in response to a time reference contained in the freeform input. In an alternative embodiment, freeform digital ink inputs may be directly entered into a pen computer system via a stylus. Reminder messages may be delivered over a computer display, facsimile device, via email, telephone or portable paging device.

Method for accepting a freeform input containing message with time reference thereupon providing an alert message according to the time reference

Widgets are annotated with freeform digital ink. Rather than annotating the data displayed by widgets, annotations are made &ldquo;on&rdquo; the widgets themselves and stored in relation to the application and/or window they are associated with. These annotations allow users to interact with widgets without having to keep a separate hardcopy set of notes or instructions explaining how to use the widgets.

Method and apparatus for annotating widgets

Freeform digital ink marks on an object are copied onto other objects that are related to the object. An embodiment of the invention copies freeform digital ink mark on terms in an index to corresponding instances of those terms in documents upon which the index is based. The instances of the freeform digital ink marks enable a user of the electronic system of the invention to quickly and easily comprehend the organization of a document and to navigate and search a document.

Method and system for copying a freeform digital ink mark on an object to a related object

An electronic document reader supplements a new document with selectable links that reference portions of previously read documents that have content similar to a passage of the new document. The portions of the previously read documents may be previously identified and stored in a memory to expedite processing. The portions of previously read documents are identified by annotations or explicitly by a user. The identified portions are indexed, clustered and are used as proxies for topics. This invention segments a new document into passages and matches the passages to the stored topics based on the similarity of the content. The topics that exceed a content similarity threshold cause corresponding selectable links to be displayed in the display of the new document near the corresponding passage. The user of this invention can then choose to follow the selectable link to learn more about the topic of the corresponding segment. In this manner, this invention aids a reader in connecting material in the new document with material in previously read documents.

Method and apparatus for displaying references to a user's document browsing history within the context of a new document

The method and system of this invention analyzes a document to generate margin or end notes of references to portions of other documents and other portions of the same documents that relate to annotated passages in the document or to the entire document. The method and system of the invention is responsive to the annotation of a passage of a document to generate a query that retrieves portions of documents that have similar content to the annotated passage. The retrieved portions are made available to the reader through selectable links placed in the margin near the annotated passage in a display of the document. Additionally, the method and system of the invention provides end notes with links to portions that are similar in content to the overall content of the annotated document. The method and system of the invention assists the reader by passively generating selectable links to related portions to assist the user in relating the new document to other portions of documents.

Method and system for suggesting related documents

A document organizing system extracts annotations made to a document along with the context surrounding each annotation and organizes the annotations based upon the annotation attributes and/or context. The annotations are created by grouping marks based upon their proximity in time and space. The document is segmented to determine a minimum context associated with each annotation. A list of the annotations sorted by the attributes are then displayed to the user. The context provided by the invention for each annotation allows the user to fully understand the annotation.

Method and system for organizing documents based upon annotations in context

The electronic document reading and skimming system presents a document using a variable emphasis attribute. The emphasis varies based on a degree with which each term in the document represents the overall content of the document or the user's interest with respect to that document. The system and method of this invention calculates a score for each term that reflects the degree to which each term represents the overall content of the document, maps the scores to a variable emphasis attribute of a presentation system and then presents the document in accordance with the mapped scores.

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Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Morgan N Price