Abstract: Freeform digital ink marks on an object are copied onto other objects that are related to the object. An embodiment of the invention copies freeform digital ink mark on terms in an index to corresponding instances of those terms in documents upon which the index is based. The instances of the freeform digital ink marks enable a user of the electronic system of the invention to quickly and easily comprehend the organization of a document and to navigate and search a document.

Abstract: A document storage management system and method that manages the storage of documents based upon the similarity of the content of the documents. Groups of documents are created based upon the similarity of the contents of the documents. Those groups are displayed to the user in a ranked list of selectable groups to permit selection of a group or document. The storage of the selected group or document is then managed by, for example, deleting, compressing, or copying. The displayed list may be ranked based upon a least recently used policy, the relevance to a predetermined topic, the size of the group, the radius of the group based upon the maximum distance of any document from the group centroid, the number of documents in the group and any other combination of parameters.

Abstract: An electronic document reader supplements a new document with selectable links that reference portions of previously read documents that have content similar to a passage of the new document. The portions of the previously read documents may be previously identified and stored in a memory to expedite processing. The portions of previously read documents are identified by annotations or explicitly by a user. The identified portions are indexed, clustered and are used as proxies for topics. This invention segments a new document into passages and matches the passages to the stored topics based on the similarity of the content. The topics that exceed a content similarity threshold cause corresponding selectable links to be displayed in the display of the new document near the corresponding passage. The user of this invention can then choose to follow the selectable link to learn more about the topic of the corresponding segment.

Abstract: The method and system of this invention analyzes a document to generate margin or end notes of references to portions of other documents and other portions of the same documents that relate to annotated passages in the document or to the entire document. The method and system of the invention is responsive to the annotation of a passage of a document to generate a query that retrieves portions of documents that have similar content to the annotated passage. The retrieved portions are made available to the reader through selectable links placed in the margin near the annotated passage in a display of the document. Additionally, the method and system of the invention provides end notes with links to portions that are similar in content to the overall content of the annotated document. The method and system of the invention assists the reader by passively generating selectable links to related portions to assist the user in relating the new document to other portions of documents.

Abstract: The method and system of the invention enables free-from digital ink annotation of data traces and storage management of the data trace based upon the free-from digital ink annotations. An embodiment of the system and method of the invention receives a freeform digital ink annotation on a data trace, maps the freeform digital ink annotation to the data corresponding to the annotated portions of the data trace and renders the freeform digital ink annotations on a display of the data trace.

Abstract: A document organizing system extracts annotations made to a document along with the context surrounding each annotation and organizes the annotations based upon the annotation attributes and/or context. The annotations are created by grouping marks based upon their proximity in time and space. The document is segmented to determine a minimum context associated with each annotation. A list of the annotations sorted by the attributes are then displayed to the user. The context provided by the invention for each annotation allows the user to fully understand the annotation.

Abstract: The electronic document reading and skimming system presents a document using a variable emphasis attribute. The emphasis varies based on a degree with which each term in the document represents the overall content of the document or the user's interest with respect to that document. The system and method of this invention calculates a score for each term that reflects the degree to which each term represents the overall content of the document, maps the scores to a variable emphasis attribute of a presentation system and then presents the document in accordance with the mapped scores.

Abstract: When dynamically grouping a plurality of graphic objects, such as displayed on a graphic input display apparatus, a cluster tree is formed for the plurality of graphic objects. The cluster tree is based on a plurality of different types of distance measures. These include a time distance and a spatial distance. These distances are combined to form a distance metric indicting a distance between a pair of the graphic objects. Each level of the cluster tree defines a new cluster of the graphic objects. At least one of the graphic objects is selected. The different cluster levels of the cluster tree containing the selected graphic object are displayable. The displayed cluster of the graphic objects can be modified to increase or decrease the cluster level of the cluster containing the selected graphic object.