US5835905A
Expired / Lapsed
US
⏱️ 0.0 years remaining
System for predicting documents relevant to focus documents by spreading activation through network representations of a linked collection of documents
Assignee: Xerox Corp
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Filing: 1997-04-09
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Granted: 1998-11-10
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Expires: 2017-04-09
Abstract
Abstract A system for extracting and analyzing information from a collection of linked documents at a locality to enable categorization of documents and prediction of documents relevant to a focus document. The system obtains and analyzes topology, usage and path information from for a collection at a locality, e.g. a web locality on the world wide web. For categorization, document meta information is represented as document vectors. Predefined criteria is applied to the document vectors to create lists of "similar" types of documents. For relevance prediction, networks representing topology, usage path and text similarity amongst the documents in the collection are created. A spreading activation technique is applied to the networks starting at a focus document to predict the documents relevant to the focus document. Using category and relevance prediction information, tools can be built to enable a user to more efficiently traverse through the collection of linked documents.
Inventors
- 👤 Peter L. Pirolli
- 👤 James E. Pitkow
- 👤 Ramana B. Rao
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
US
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-10-26 09:47
CPC Classifications
G; G06; G06F; G06F16/00; G06F16/30; G06F16/35; G06F16/33; G06F16/3331; G06F16/3332; G06F16/3334; Y; Y10; Y10S; Y10S707/00; Y10S707/99931; Y10S707/99933; Y10S707/99935; Y10S707/99941; Y10S707/99943
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 15
Claim 1
Independent Claim
90 words
A system for identifying documents relevant to a focus document in a linked collection of documents, said system comprising: means for obtaining raw data for said linked collection of documents, said raw data including usage data, topology data and content data; means for creating usage, topology and text similarity maps for said linked collection of documents from said raw data; and means for predicting a relevant set of documents for a subset of said linked collection of documents using one or more of said usage, topology and text similarity maps.
Claim 2
Independent Claim
90 words
A system for identifying documents relevant to a focus document in a linked collection of documents, said system comprising: means for obtaining raw data for said linked collection of documents, said raw data including usage data, topology data and content data; means for creating usage, topology and text similarity maps for said linked collection of documents from said raw data; and means for predicting a relevant set of documents for a subset of said linked collection of documents using one or more of said usage, topology and text similarity maps.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
52 words
The system as recited in claim 1 wherein said means for obtaining raw data for said linked collection of documents is further comprised of a first agent for traversing said linked collection of documents to obtain topology information and a second agent for obtaining usage statistics for said linked collection of documents.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
155 words
The system as recited in claim 2 wherein said means for creating usage, topology and text similarity maps is comprised of: means for creating a usage matrix wherein each row and column correspond to a document in said linked collection of documents and each intersection represents the number of times a user traversed from the document indicated by the row to the document indicated by said column; means for creating a topology matrix wherein each row and column correspond to a document in said linked collection of documents and each intersection indicates if there is a link between said document indicated by the row and the document indicated by the column; means for creating a text similarity matrix wherein each row and column correspond to a document in said linked collection of documents and each intersection indicates a measure of similarity between said document indicated by the row and the document indicated by the column.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
66 words
The system as recited in claim 3 wherein said means for predicting a relevant set of documents for a subset of said linked collection of documents is further comprised of means for spreading activation through one or more of said usage, topology and text similarity maps and means for identifying a predetermined number of corresponding documents having the most activation as said relevant set of documents.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
68 words
The system as recited in claim 4 wherein said means for predicting a relevant set of documents for a subset of said linked collection of documents is further comprised of means for spreading activation through one or more of said usage, topology and text similarity maps and means for identifying a predetermined number of corresponding documents having activation above a predetermined threshold as said relevant set of documents.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
17 words
The system as recited in claim 1 wherein said linked collection of documents is a Web locality.
Claim 8
Independent Claim
139 words
A method for identifying documents relevant to a focus document in a linked collection of documents, said method comprising the steps of: a) obtaining raw data for said linked collection of documents, said raw data including topology information and usage information; b) generating text similarity information between documents in said linked collection of documents; c) creating a plurality of characteristic maps from said raw data and text similarity information, each of said plurality of characteristic maps indicating relationships between documents in said linked collection of documents; d) selecting one or more focus documents from said linked collection of documents; e) spreading activation starting at said one or more focus documents through one or more of said plurality of characteristic maps until activation settles into an asymptotic pattern; and f) identifying relevant documents as those meeting a predetermined activation criteria.
Claim 9
Independent Claim
139 words
A method for identifying documents relevant to a focus document in a linked collection of documents, said method comprising the steps of: a) obtaining raw data for said linked collection of documents, said raw data including topology information and usage information; b) generating text similarity information between documents in said linked collection of documents; c) creating a plurality of characteristic maps from said raw data and text similarity information, each of said plurality of characteristic maps indicating relationships between documents in said linked collection of documents; d) selecting one or more focus documents from said linked collection of documents; e) spreading activation starting at said one or more focus documents through one or more of said plurality of characteristic maps until activation settles into an asymptotic pattern; and f) identifying relevant documents as those meeting a predetermined activation criteria.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
57 words
The method as recited in claim 7 wherein said step of obtaining raw data for said linked collection of documents a1) retrieving a web page; a2) storing location information for said web page; a3) parsing said web page to identify links to other web pages; and a4) repeating steps a1)-a3) for each of said other web pages.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
48 words
The method as recited in claim 8 wherein said step of obtaining raw data for said linked collection of documents further comprising the steps of obtaining access data from said linked collection, said access data indicating when and from where documents in said linked collections have been accessed.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
57 words
The method as recited in claim 9 wherein said step of generating text similarity information is further comprised of the steps of: b1) tokenizing said documents in said linked collection of documents, said tokens representing a word; and b2) comparing the similarity of documents by comparing the tokens contained in a document to obtain similarity measure information.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
122 words
The method as recited in claim 10 wherein said step of creating a plurality of characteristic maps from said raw data and text similarity information is further comprised of the steps of: c1) for each characteristic creating a matrix where each row and column correspond to a document and the intersection of a row and column indicates a characteristic between documents; c2) generating topology characteristic information and usage path characteristic information from said raw data, said topology information for indicating if a document contains a link to another document and said usage path information indicating the number of times a document was accessed from another document; and c3) inserting the characteristic information between documents at each intersection point in the corresponding matrix.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim
30 words
The method as recited in claim 7 wherein for said step of identifying relevant documents as those meeting a predetermined activation criteria, said predetermined criteria is an activation threshold value.
Claim 15
Dependent Claim
33 words
The method as recited in claim 7 wherein for said step of identifying relevant documents as those meeting a predetermined activation criteria, said predetermined criteria is a predetermined number of most activated documents.
References Cited (Backward Citations)
US5418948A
Cited
US5754939A
Cited
USPTO Annuity & Maintenance Windows
| Annuity Stage | Window Opens | Payment Deadline | Surcharge Period Until | Estimated Fee | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.5 Years (Year 4) | 2001-11-09 | 2002-05-11 | 2002-11-10 | $2000.00 | Window Closed / Lapsed |
| 7.5 Years (Year 8) | 2005-11-09 | 2006-05-11 | 2006-11-10 | $3760.00 | Window Closed / Lapsed |
| 11.5 Years (Year 12) | 2009-11-09 | 2010-05-11 | 2010-11-10 | $7700.00 | Window Closed / Lapsed |