Abstract: A tool for navigating composite documents composed of multiple component documents. The tool allows a user to enter a composite document identification number, and thereafter have access to each component document within the composite document. The user can view, compare and display comparisons of the component documents, including versions of component documents. A graphical user interface is provided that prompts the user for required information and provides the user with many useful views for analyzing the component documents. In an embodiment, the composite document is the file history for a patent and the component documents are amendments, including application claims, and other papers found in a file history, such as the patent application, as originally filed, and the resulting patent. One feature of the tool allows the user to select a claim and have all versions of the claim displayed for easy review and analysis.

Abstract: A tool for generating at least one search index for a composite document, wherein the composite document comprises multiple component documents. The search index is generated by extracting characters from the document, segregating the characters into tokens of one or more characters, and determining location information of the tokens. The location information can include the page number of the component document and X, Y page coordinates for the tokens. The tool also provides a user interface that allows for searching of the composite document using at least one of the generated indexes. The user interface allows the user to enter one or more search terms and to select the criteria that will be used during the search. Results are presented to the user via a list of document names that are also hyperlinks to the document. The results documents are listed in order of relevancy, and fragments of text that contain the searched terms are also available to the user, for each document.

Abstract: A gathering, manipulating and analyzing tool for reviewing, displaying and creating reports on composite documents, wherein a composite document is made up of multiple component documents. The present method allows for entry and editing of metadata associated with component documents of the composite document. This allows for more highly refined classifying and bookmarking, which leads to more highly refined searching and displaying abilities. A graphical user interface is provided that allows a user to easily designate multiple sections of the composite document and enter and edit the data and metadata associated with the composite document.