Abstract: Ontology alignment is achieved using an exchange of annotations between different actors (users, software agent, application, etc.) over the Internet in order to create aligned ontologies that can be used by search engines to locate web content in the Semantic Web. An annotation related to a source ontology is received from a different storage medium. The ontology associated with that annotation is retrieved in order to make a local copy. The copied ontology is renamed before its content can be modified through a user interface. Every element modified inside the copied ontology is then automatically tagged with information in that links the modified element to the corresponding element in the source ontology. Alignment between the copied ontology and the source ontology is thereby achieved.

Abstract: The present invention is based on the use of annotation. An annotation is an information that can be applied to a content to provide extra information. The present invention provides for a method and system to use an annotation being imported into a document to replicate the ontology related to this annotation and to exploits this replication to create indirect links between different ontologies elements. The indirect links between the different ontologies constitute by themselves a global ontology that can be used by search engines to locate web contents in the Semantic Web.