The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 07, 1998
Filed:
Dec. 19, 1995
Mark H Shirley, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Lawrence Armour, Stantonbury Fields, GB;
David G Bell, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Daniel G Bobrow, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Mark Harmison, Rochester, NY (US);
Daniel S Marder, Penfield, NY (US);
Olivier Raiman, Paris, FR;
Kim H Schwind, Honeoye, NY (US);
Estella M Verdouw, Walworth, NY (US);
Charles Vorndran, Rochester, NY (US);
Xerox Corporation, Stamford, CT (US);
Abstract
An expert system, such as could be used for service of a complicated physical device such as a printer or copier, exploits a knowledge base which is written in a markup language format such as SGML. The knowledge base comprises text which, if desired, can be printed out on paper to yield a traditional service manual. In addition to the typical formatting markup language tags surrounding the text of the knowledge base, hierarchical tags are provided in the electronic version of the knowledge base, to define a set of decision trees which can be accessed and navigated by an expert system. A diagnostic advisor can access specific elements of the knowledge base as needed to synthesize optimized diagnosis and repair procedures depending on an entry given by a tech rep servicing a machine. This arrangement thus supports both a printed service manual and a viewer that provides expert diagnostic advice.