US5960419A
Expired / Lapsed
US
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Authoring tool for computer implemented decision management system
Assignee: Expert Systems Publishing Co
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Filing: 1997-10-07
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Granted: 1999-09-28
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Expires: 2017-10-07
Abstract
Abstract An authoring method and apparatus for creating an application for a decision management system such as a document assembly system. The method includes creating sets of question procedures, answer procedures and advice procedures for a particular application. When later executed, the procedures generate, respectively, questions, answer choices, and advice for a user of the application. Also created are procedures that may be referenced in on or more of the question, answer, or advice procedures for generating content based on an analysis of one or more answers previously provided by a user in response to a question. The content provided by these referenced procedures becomes part of the question, answer, or advice provided by the respective procedure making the reference. In this way the content of the questions, answers, and advice changes depending upon previous answers given by a user to previous questions. And because the question, answer, and advice procedures reference procedures rather than variables, the content provided by the referenced procedure is not limited to being merely a copy of an answer to a previous question.
Inventors
- 👤 Fred D. Fagg, III
- 👤 Peter D. Bergsman
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
US
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-11-08 04:46
CPC Classifications
G; G06; G06N; G06N5/00; G06N5/02; G06N5/022; G06N5/025; G09; G09B; G09B7/00; G09B7/02; G09B7/04
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 30
Claim 1
Independent Claim
96 words
A method for creating application programs for a computer-assisted decision management system, comprising: providing data including text, block references and conditional statements in program blocks addressable by unique names, a conditional statement within a program block constructed to accept a reference to another program block as a condition for evaluation; providing answer choices for the application program in program blocks; listing the names of program blocks on a display for selection; and in response to selection of program blocks by an author, assembling the selected program blocks into a desired order to create an application program.
Claim 2
Independent Claim
96 words
A method for creating application programs for a computer-assisted decision management system, comprising: providing data including text, block references and conditional statements in program blocks addressable by unique names, a conditional statement within a program block constructed to accept a reference to another program block as a condition for evaluation; providing answer choices for the application program in program blocks; listing the names of program blocks on a display for selection; and in response to selection of program blocks by an author, assembling the selected program blocks into a desired order to create an application program.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
187 words
A computer-implemented authoring tool for creating an application for a document assembly system, comprising: a computer: a block editor stored in the computer for creating blocks for holding data in the form of text, references to other blocks and conditional statements, the blocks including question blocks for asking questions, answer choice blocks for accepting answers to questions, suggested answer blocks to provide suggested answers, question condition blocks to suppress the asking of inappropriate questions, help and context blocks to hold help or context, processing blocks to hold the logic of result processing, fact blocks to hold value assignments, and blocks to manage loop structures; an index stored in the computer for listing blocks created for the application; a workspace stored in the computer for entering the data into an opened block from the index; a selection mechanism stored in the computer for inserting a reference to an indexed block into the opened block; and a selection mechanism stored in the computer for inserting a conditional statement into the opened block, the conditional statement constructed to accept a reference to an indexed block as a condition for evaluation.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
187 words
A computer-implemented authoring tool for creating an application for a document assembly system, comprising: a computer: a block editor stored in the computer for creating blocks for holding data in the form of text, references to other blocks and conditional statements, the blocks including question blocks for asking questions, answer choice blocks for accepting answers to questions, suggested answer blocks to provide suggested answers, question condition blocks to suppress the asking of inappropriate questions, help and context blocks to hold help or context, processing blocks to hold the logic of result processing, fact blocks to hold value assignments, and blocks to manage loop structures; an index stored in the computer for listing blocks created for the application; a workspace stored in the computer for entering the data into an opened block from the index; a selection mechanism stored in the computer for inserting a reference to an indexed block into the opened block; and a selection mechanism stored in the computer for inserting a conditional statement into the opened block, the conditional statement constructed to accept a reference to an indexed block as a condition for evaluation.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
33 words
The authoring tool of claim 2 including means for creating an answer block for holding an answer to a question each time the block editor creates a question block for asking a question.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
44 words
The authoring tool of claim 2 including means for creating a help block for holding instructions for answering a question and a context block for giving the context of a question each time the block editor creates a question block for asking a question.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
31 words
The authoring tool of claim 2 including means for creating a question condition block for containing conditions that must be met before a question in an associated question block is asked.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
18 words
The authoring tool of claim 2 including means for asking questions in questions blocks in a predetermined sequence.
Claim 9
Independent Claim
113 words
A method for creating an application for a computer-assisted decision management system, the method comprising the following steps: creating a set of question procedures for the application for asking questions of a user, one or more of the questions procedures containing a reference to a referenced procedure; creating a referenced procedure for a question procedure, the referenced procedure generating content literally different from but based on an analysis of one or more previous answers entered by a user in response to a question, the referenced procedure providing the content to the question procedure for use in generating a question; and storing the set of question procedures and referenced procedure on a computer-readable medium.
Claim 10
Independent Claim
113 words
A method for creating an application for a computer-assisted decision management system, the method comprising the following steps: creating a set of question procedures for the application for asking questions of a user, one or more of the questions procedures containing a reference to a referenced procedure; creating a referenced procedure for a question procedure, the referenced procedure generating content literally different from but based on an analysis of one or more previous answers entered by a user in response to a question, the referenced procedure providing the content to the question procedure for use in generating a question; and storing the set of question procedures and referenced procedure on a computer-readable medium.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
79 words
The method of claim 7 including creating a set of answer procedures for the application for generating answer choices for a user, one or more of the answer procedures containing a reference to a referenced procedure that generates content literally different from but based on an analysis of one or more previous answers entered by a user in response to a question, the referenced procedure providing the content to the answer procedure for use in generating an answer choice.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
15 words
The method of claim 7 wherein a question procedure contains references to multiple referenced procedures.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
16 words
The method of claim 7 wherein a referenced procedure contains a reference to another referenced procedure.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim
34 words
The method of claim 7 wherein a referenced procedure includes a conditional statement that chooses a result from a group of possible results based on one or more previous answers entered by a user.
Claim 15
Dependent Claim
79 words
The method of claim 7 including creating a set of advice procedures for the application for advising a user with respect to a question, one or more of the advice procedures containing a reference to a referenced procedure that generates content literally different from but based on an analysis of one or more previous answers entered by a user in response to a question, the referenced procedure providing the content to the advice procedure for use in generating advice.
Claim 16
Dependent Claim
19 words
The method of claim 7 wherein the reference in the question procedure is a call to the referenced procedure.
Claim 17
Dependent Claim
15 words
The method of claim 7 wherein the decision management system is a document assembly system.
Claim 18
Dependent Claim
115 words
A computer-implemented apparatus for creating an application for a computer-assisted decision management system, comprising: means for creating a set of question procedures for the application for asking questions of a user, one or more of the questions procedures containing a reference to a referenced procedure; means for creating a referenced procedure for a question procedure, the referenced procedure generating content literally different from but based on an analysis of one or more previous answers entered by a user in response to a question, the referenced procedure providing the content to the question procedure for use in generating a question; and means for storing the set of question procedures and referenced procedure on a computer-readable medium.
Claim 19
Dependent Claim
115 words
A computer-implemented apparatus for creating an application for a computer-assisted decision management system, comprising: means for creating a set of question procedures for the application for asking questions of a user, one or more of the questions procedures containing a reference to a referenced procedure; means for creating a referenced procedure for a question procedure, the referenced procedure generating content literally different from but based on an analysis of one or more previous answers entered by a user in response to a question, the referenced procedure providing the content to the question procedure for use in generating a question; and means for storing the set of question procedures and referenced procedure on a computer-readable medium.
Claim 20
Dependent Claim
81 words
The apparatus of claim 15 including means for creating a set of answer procedures for the application for generating answer choices for a user, one or more of the answer procedures containing a reference to a referenced procedure that generates content literally different from but based on an analysis of one or more previous answers entered by a user in response to a question, the referenced procedure providing the content to the answer procedure for use in generating an answer choice.
Claim 21
Dependent Claim
15 words
The apparatus of claim 15 wherein a question procedure contains references to multiple referenced procedures.
Claim 22
Dependent Claim
16 words
The apparatus of claim 15 wherein a referenced procedure contains a reference to another referenced procedure.
Claim 23
Dependent Claim
34 words
The apparatus of claim 15 wherein a referenced procedure includes a conditional statement that chooses a result from a group of possible results based on one or more previous answers entered by a user.
Claim 24
Dependent Claim
81 words
The apparatus of claim 15 including means for creating a set of advice procedures for the application for advising a user with respect to a question, one or more of the advice procedures containing a reference to a referenced procedure that generates content literally different from but based on an analysis of one or more previous answers entered by a user in response to a question, the referenced procedure providing the content to the advice procedure for use in generating advice.
Claim 25
Dependent Claim
19 words
The apparatus of claim 15 wherein the reference in the question procedure is a call to the referenced procedure.
Claim 26
Dependent Claim
15 words
The apparatus of claim 15 wherein the decision management system is a document assembly system.
Claim 27
Independent Claim
94 words
A method for creating an application for a computer-assisted decision management system, the method comprising the following steps: creating a set of question procedures for the application for asking questions of a user, one or more of the questions procedures containing a reference to a referenced procedure; creating a referenced procedure for a question procedure, the referenced procedure generating content for the question based on an analysis of one or more previous answers given by a user in response to a question; and storing the question procedures and referenced procedure on a computer-readable medium.
Claim 28
Independent Claim
94 words
A method for creating an application for a computer-assisted decision management system, the method comprising the following steps: creating a set of question procedures for the application for asking questions of a user, one or more of the questions procedures containing a reference to a referenced procedure; creating a referenced procedure for a question procedure, the referenced procedure generating content for the question based on an analysis of one or more previous answers given by a user in response to a question; and storing the question procedures and referenced procedure on a computer-readable medium.
Claim 29
Dependent Claim
96 words
A computer-implemented apparatus for creating an application for a computer-assisted decision management system, comprising: means for creating a set of question procedures for the application for asking questions of a user, one or more of the questions procedures containing a reference to a referenced procedure; means for creating a referenced procedure for a question procedure, the referenced procedure generating content for the question based on an analysis of one or more previous answers given by a user in response to a question; and means for storing the question procedures and referenced procedure on a computer-readable medium.
Claim 30
Dependent Claim
96 words
A computer-implemented apparatus for creating an application for a computer-assisted decision management system, comprising: means for creating a set of question procedures for the application for asking questions of a user, one or more of the questions procedures containing a reference to a referenced procedure; means for creating a referenced procedure for a question procedure, the referenced procedure generating content for the question based on an analysis of one or more previous answers given by a user in response to a question; and means for storing the question procedures and referenced procedure on a computer-readable medium.
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USPTO Annuity & Maintenance Windows
| Annuity Stage | Window Opens | Payment Deadline | Surcharge Period Until | Estimated Fee | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.5 Years (Year 4) | 2002-09-27 | 2003-03-29 | 2003-09-28 | $2000.00 | Window Closed / Lapsed |
| 7.5 Years (Year 8) | 2006-09-27 | 2007-03-29 | 2007-09-28 | $3760.00 | Window Closed / Lapsed |
| 11.5 Years (Year 12) | 2010-09-27 | 2011-03-29 | 2011-09-28 | $7700.00 | Window Closed / Lapsed |